


Where Whispers Meet Wind

by Kibbers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Baseball, Isolation to Engagement, Knitting, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Movie Night, Rain, Slow Build, Small Towns, Strangers to Lovers, Traditions, Tree Houses, Wakes & Funerals, kissing day, story telling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-08 07:52:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 52,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8836435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kibbers/pseuds/Kibbers
Summary: Gabriel could race the whispers across his tiny town if he wanted to. But, Gabriel didn’t listen to the whispers. Just spent days inside his empty home, one that knew the sound of his voice outside and in and only his own. Which is why he hardly noticed when the stranger walked into town. But with the bees coming, the monsoons worse than ever, and a death in the town leaving a young Ben perpetually running, Gabriel just might need the help of the stranger to sort it all out before the summer ends. He just might find a house fuller than it was before, too.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise! Happy holidays everyone! Chapters will be posted daily starting 12/14 and ending Christmas Day! This is a far longer fic than I had planned in [ this post ](https://kibberswrites.tumblr.com/post/140241561843/i-really-want-to-write-a-fic-i-think-i-might-tbh), but here we are months later with a fic I'm so excited to share! Huge shout out to [ Iamaqt314 ](http://iamaqt314.tumblr.com/) who gave me the best ideas to incorporate into this small town! 
> 
> This fic is full of quirk and flaw. If you're looking for a fic that takes itself seriously, this may not be the best choice for you. If you want some fun, quirky small town madness mixed with a little bit of Kibbers brand magical realism, enjoy!

It wasn’t every night. But there’d come a summer night, and Gabriel would spot his father sitting on the rocking chair on the porch. He’d make his way to the steps when the sun began to set, and  his father would tell him stories, shrouded in starlight and through heavy eyelids as Gabe sprawled on the steps of their aging porch, long since ready to sleep but not wanting to miss a word. Some days, it’d be stories of boys like Gabe, off to seek and seek and seek. Treasure, friendship, love. To know the fingerprint of a god. To reach beyond their little town’s walls. Those days, his father’s voice would pave paths into the forest for him to follow and Gabriel could see them shimmering in the moonlight though they’d disappear by morning. One day, his father would say, one day they’ll stay for you until sunlight comes up. That’s when you’ll know you’ve found what you were meant to do.

Some days, it’d be stories of monsters, here to take and take and take. Those got particularly bad when the monsters of the real world worked their way into his father’s mind, whispering, urging his fingers for those glass bottles he always kept in the top cabinet where he thought Gabriel couldn’t see them. A bottle would dangle from his fingers as he ground out warnings and dark, dark tales. Those days, the forest crept close, and Gabe would curl in on the step, closing his eyes. Still, he did not leave. His father’s words, though slipping and slurred they may be, held magic. 

Gabe’s favorite days were when his father spoke of magic things. Mystical things. But the kind that he could see, touch, feel. The kind they lived amongst in the world.

One day, he told Gabe of the stars and the way humans looked up and up and found a way to see parts of themselves. Told him the stars looked down and down and saw parts of themselves in the humans too. In the way they saw humans light themselves aflame from the inside. In the way they too suffered in silence and in darkness. In the way they fought against it all, reaching, always, always reaching. 

One day his father told him of the way the ocean beats like a heart. Tears people to pieces like one too. The ocean floor had been covered in wreckage longer than the stars held names.

One day, he told Gabe of the trees. 

Trees, he said, needed not three, but four things to survive. Sunlight, water, soil, those everyone knew. But they also needed something else. One thing deeper. They needed words. The trees craved them, carved them into their trunks. They’d grow the words into their leaves and pass them on when the wind came whispering.

Big cities, he said, were where trees went to drown. Too many words. Only the strongest survive with that many words in their heart. Cities didn’t need the trees to carry their words from one end to the other. Cities screamed with lungs of their own, lungs of brick and steel, lungs of their own making.

But, in small towns like this, the trees sprang up in the hundreds. In the thousands. See, in small towns, there was fodder enough for them all. There was chatter and laughter, whispering tucked behind hands enough for the trees to want to, need to, lean in. Lean closer. Catch the words and hold onto them until the wind arrived to take the words onwards. It was why the wind was warm sometimes, his father said with a glint in his eye, because it held words meant just for Gabriel. 

That night, after his father had sunken into his bed with a creaking Gabe didn’t notice anymore, Gabe lay awake three doors down, staring out his open window at the forest. One tree must have held his first words, he thought. Another, his brother’s last. He wondered what words they’d be carrying years from now, if they’d remember him at all. If they’d keep noises inside their hearts too. Noises like the zipper of his duffel bag, the creaking of the staircase beneath his feet, the click of the front door. If they did, one tree must have held his soft and silent goodbye. The pathways would never wait for sunshine. He’d follow them by moonlight instead.

It had been years since his father had told him that and Gabe could remember imagining the trees leaning in to listen. Years since Gabe left his home that night for another roof in a different town that might as well have been the same. His father had been right about big cities. Too much screaming. Gabe, well, sure he liked to scream in his time. But, there was only so much to scream about and the latest frozen yogurt flavor wasn’t one he wanted to hear at three in the morning. He moved on fast. Kept moving too. His path hadn’t stayed until sunlight. Not yet.

So, years and years later, Gabe sat on his porch steps staring out into the trees and he thought about what his father had said about the way the trees held words inside. He said nothing. There was nothing he wanted the wind to carry, nothing he wanted the trees to carve into their hearts forever. 

From within the trees, muffled giggling drifted to him and Gabe couldn’t tell if the wind was to thank for that. He thanked it anyway.  _ Your welcome, _ it slid, warm, against his cheek. Beside him sat a pyramid of toilet paper. On his face, a grin. 

Adolescent and gangling feet emerged, hesitantly, from the forest edge. From darkness. One pair of feet, stopping with the trees just at their heels. 

“Mr. Novak?” the girl’s voice carried to him across the yard and he pictured the trees consuming her words. Leaning down and consuming her too. It wouldn’t take much. But, the trees consumed nothing. His father had been wrong. He shook thoughts of nonsense from his head and met the girl’s eyes in the darkness.

“That’s me, kiddo. What can I do for you?”

The girl broke into a sideways grin. “Well, word around town is you already know why we’re here.”

“Not all words are true,” Gabe said.

“But, you’re out here so these ones must be,” she shot back, hand on her cocked hip. Her jeans dragged in the dirt, torn on the edges. Gabe could hear them drag as she took another step forward. The forest wasn’t silent behind her, but it wasn’t the trees nor the wind. 

He met her eyes and let his lips split into a grin. “Suppose you’ve got me there. Your friends didn’t want to join you?”

She jerked, head turning towards the forest, before starting to stutter something like an apology.

“It’’s fine,” Gabe said. “I am the monster at the edge of the woods after all.”

“No. We don’t seek monsters,” she said, soft. There was silence, Gabe was making a decision.

“So?” she asked after a minute, still tense and stiff-shouldered. 

“So.” Gabe raised an eyebrow, waiting.

She narrowed her eyes, then, teeth finding her lip. This is where the whispers ended. This is where she proved herself. She swung the backpack on her back, bringing it to the front of her body so she could unzip the big pocket. Gabe stayed where he was, sitting. 

“Take your pick,” she said. From the bag, she pulled out a plastic bag fill of loose change and crumpled dollar bills, dropping it to the ground with a clink. She pulled a grocery bag full of tattered comic books, those too kicking up dirt as they landed. She pulled a pencil case closed and waiting. A handful of bubblegum, lost from their package. She watched Gabe take it all in, still chewing her lip. They didn’t have much. He was glad she would not apologize for that.

Gabe pointed to the bubble gum in her palm and held up two fingers. She fumbled with her bag, letting it fall into the dirt before she stepped forward, holding it out to him. He took it from her shaking hands and stood from his porch steps.

The girl he recognized. Blond hair tied back into a ponytail, smile that used to be gap-toothed but had long since filled in straight and white. He’d seen her as a baby, held in someone’s arms or another. Seen her tearing through the road, covered in mud at six or seven, cutting off the one truck on the road at the time, her timing for mayhem something he had to marvel at. Now, he could see her here, standing at the bottom of his porch, the last night of high school, night cloaking itself around her. 

She was not the first to ask him for this. Not by a long shot. He’d lived here for nearly a decade and had just as many kids approach him from the forest on this night year after year. The kids whispered about the what would happen if you won over the man on the outskirts. It was tradition to attempt to earn his good will, his good luck. Year after year, the group that won fell into a streak of luck no one could explain, summers full of life. That’s how the whispers went anyway. Gabriel knew differently, though he wouldn’t ever say that. He’d let them whisper about luck all they wanted. If only for the trees. They wouldn’t be able to pass on the truth that way.

He was not a luck bringer. People living on the outskirts of town never were. When had the stories ever been good about men who live alone, buried in trees?

Gabe nodded to her, then to the stack of toilet paper on the top step. He popped a piece of gum into his mouth as he retreated back inside, his screen door closing with a slam against the night. 

He pretended to ignore the whoops of the rest of the kids tucked behind trees as the girl called out to them that they were Chosen. This year, there had been two other groups that had tried to do what this group was doing, and three more waiting for their try on the other side of the forest. 

Gabe had sent the two away without a word. One of the boys he’d seen spitting from his two story bedroom onto the furniture movers below his first day in down as they carried his bedframe through the doorway. The other never fed the cat that lived outside his home even though his mother left him note after note to fill the bowl on the porch. The boy’s mother had no idea it wasn’t her son filling that bowl. 

They didn’t know Gabriel watched. They didn’t know he cared. 

The soft thudding of toilet paper hitting the roof of his home drifted to his ears and his ears alone, though, to his father, the trees were listening too. Listening to the clicking of the group's cameras as they got proof and proof enough. To the adults, the kids had trespassed, had woken the beast that lived inside Gabe’s home. To most of the adults, the group was wild-eyed, reckless. But to some, to the ones that knew the sound of Gabe’s feet, or the ones that had hearts like his, they were something special. Word was, good things happened to those Gabriel liked. 

They were the good ones, he had decided. They were worth the mess.  

The trees listened to their laughter, to Gabe’s footsteps as they carried him into his room where he sat at his desk to work. 

On the opposite side of town, the trees listened to the footfall of someone new. Listened to the way the man stopped on the brink of passing the sign into town beside the two lane road they called a highway, taking a moment to breathe. Listened to his sigh of relief, and to the next footstep, bringing him closer. 

Just then the wind kicked up, carried the sounds of this stranger through the open windows scattered around town. Through the snore-rattling home of the mechanic, hand ready to thwap the neck of anyone he loved. The whole town, it turned out. They’d all felt that sting and smiled for days afterwards.

Through the home of the single mother with kids she never did birth, but fed and yelled at and loved anyway where she lay staring at the ceiling lost in worry for the future and the past and everything in between. 

Through the flashing apartment of the red-headed self-proclaimed gamer girl, victory cheer always waiting to erupt and earn her a pounding on her door from her neighbors down the hall. 

The wind carried the sounds of the stranger all the way across town and through the patch of forest that separated Gabe from the center, to the group of kids covering Gabe’s house in the toilet paper he gave them in return for a few pieces of bubble gum. But they beat against it with their laughter and their shouts. Why would they care for what the wind had to say? They knew nothing of new footsteps, or sighs of relief at the smallness and silence of a town. Cared not for what brought people here. Only for school and their friends and the way this toilet paper meant they had earned Gabriel’s trust, in whichever form that would become. 

The wind carried the sounds of the stranger across town so by morning everyone knew something was different, but hadn’t yet figured out what. They woke before their alarms, put pots of coffee on more for the routine than for the caffeine. They whispered. They always whispered and would soon find out about the man now leasing the room at Jody’s place.  _ Paid in cash _ they’d say.  _ Enough for a year _ they’d say.  _ Jody’s a fool to let a man big as that anywhere near her kids. Stranger danger,  _ they cried,  _ stranger, stranger _ . 

Everyone except Gabriel. His windows were sealed that night and every night. Just in case his father had been right after all. There’d be no whispers coming to him.

* * *

The morning after the stranger came into town, the whispers were quiet, weighed down. They’d come later, the talk of the stranger. There were matters to attend to first. Gabriel donned his only suit, slinging the jacket over his shoulder as he walked in his worn down dress shoes through the dirt road of the forest he lived inside. The trees had turned auburn with the spring and the leaves rained down, Gabriel’s shoes crunching all the way. The mess from the night before was still there and toilet paper followed him for a moment, tumbling along side him.

“You don’t want to go where I’m going,” he said to it. It listened, fell away. Gabriel walked the rest with his footsteps alone. 

The center of town where the Church Church sat was a mile from his house. At the halfway point, when the trees fell away to more houses and buildings, others joined in his walking. He nodded to them, and they fell into step together, filing through the flung open wooden doors of the church with the white painted walls and spire reaching for the heavens. 

Across the street was another church, wood and stained glass, but it was gutted long ago and turned into a grocery store movie theatre combo. The front was filled with aisles, the back a stage where the preacher used to do his thing. Sometimes bands would play and the acoustics would echo so loud they’d have to open the doors so the noise had somewhere to go. Once, they’d forgotten and the guitar solo shattered the stained glass of the Virgin Mary. Someone in the middle of the night had picked up all the pieces and reformed it into a mosaic of the solar system, but all the planets were out of order and turned into squares. Someone they hadn’t been able to find the identity of. Someone that was definitely not Gabriel. Definitely not. They kept it simply because they didn’t know how to take it down. 

Sometimes they wheeled in a sheet they used as a screen and projected a movie in front of the stained glass window, but only after the sun set for obvious reasons. The glare, for one, but also it was strange to see the real sun illuminate the square purple glass one. For being the same idea, each of them fought each other magnificently.

But, today was the other church, though. Where they held real church things. Today, there was a line to get into the Church Church and Gabriel fell in beside a couple, hands interlocked. They ran the local bookstore, and the only bookstore in the town, and also happened to run the animal shelter in their free time with a few other volunteers. Which meant the bookstore was overrun with cats, cat hair really, though Gabriel didn’t much mind. He wasn’t allergic like Ellen was. She’d be sneezing half a mile away and cursing them all between each wheeze.

“Hey Charlie,” Gabe said, falling into line. 

“Hey Gabriel. Where you been?” Charlie asked, tossing him a wave with her free hand.

“Hey Gabe,” Gilda said at her side. She turned to Charlie, whose voice was still ringing through the church and leveled her with a look. Charlie lowered her head at that, winking at Gabe as she did. They were at a funeral after all, though they weren’t the only ones chatting while they waited their turn to pay respects and find a seat in the overcrowded church. 

It moved fast and before he could figure out what to say, he was faced with Ben’s watery eyes. He thought he’d seen Ben tucked behind a tree the night before despite only graduating elementary school and Gabe couldn’t blame him. He was trying to live his life even after his mother died. Gabriel would bless him with more luck than he knew how if it would help ease his grief. 

Gabriel, wavering, knelt in front of the boy where he stood, Jody’s arm on his shoulder as he leaned against her. 

“So,” Gabe started, “this motherfucking sucks man.” The vulgarity, the suddenness, had Ben snorting out a shuddering laugh to echo through the church. Gabe shrugged off Jody’s stern look and winked at Ben.  “You ever need anything, this town’s at your beck and call. More importantly, you ever need a laugh, you know who to see, yeah?”

Ben let a small smile twitch at the corner of his lips as he nodded. 

“Good then. Don’t let Jody boss you around too much. She’s a softie.”

“I won’t,” Ben said, looking up at Jody. Gabriel smiled as Ben leaned into her more, letting her hold him up, the line of people trying to ease his sorrow never ending. Gabriel looked around for a seat, seeing some of his neighbors carrying in couches and fold-up chairs and, in the hands of the teenagers from the night before looking haggard, a canoe from the river to make more seats. The pews were already overcrowded, people sitting on laps, overheating and sweaty. Gabriel snagged a row of crates brought from the grocery store across the way and waved Charlie over once she and Gilda were done saying their piece. 

“You hear about the stranger living with Jody now?” someone’s voice rang out a little too loud over the whispers. Gabe wasn’t listening though. Not to that. Not to Charlie and Gilda as they started to whisper about the dynamic at Jody’s now she had a stranger and a new child to look after. Instead he finally, finally, let himself look at the casket in the front. At the way Ben kept his back to it no matter who was talking to him or where they were in the room. Gabe watched Ben and wanted to weep. 

The funeral started after everyone filed in, people coming in late to stand in the back. Gabriel and Charlie earned a glare from Garth at the podium as they bet on how many times someone would blow their nose too loudly. He hit thirty when Ben stood from the front pew and made his way down the center aisle head down, the crowd parting for him as he pushed through the doors and into empty streets. The minute his foot met sidewalk, he was sprinting, footsteps echoing and sending dirt flying through the swinging doorway in a rainfall all of them were stunned enough to hear hit the wooden floor. 

They all froze, looking around. Should they follow? Garth at the front stuttered mid sentence and then continued droning so the crowd turned back around to listen to the sermon he’d prepared. Gabe felt the strongest urge to follow, knowing he was of Ben’s kind. He grieved in footsteps, he grieved in dust. But, thinking back, he wouldn’t have wanted anyone to follow him. Jody made her way to the back, but Gabe stopped her with a hand on her wrist. She looked at him as he shook his head. She raised an eyebrow. Gabriel mouthed  _ trust me _ . Jody stared harder, then sighed. Jody shoed Gabriel over, sitting down on half the crate beside Gabriel. She patted his leg, eyes going from Garth to the doors in the back again. 

“He needs to run some of this off. You can follow in a minute, help him find his way back.”

Jody nodded, looking at Gabe for a moment too long. He cleared his throat and they turned back to the front to listen. She slipped out soon after when he nodded at her glance yet again for approval. 

After the casket was walked from the room and out into the street to be carried to the graveyard, Gabriel found her on the steps of the church, Ben leaning against her shoulder. Gabriel sat beside them, leaning into whisper to her and her alone.

“Need anything?” Gabe asked.

She shook her head. Gabe nodded, knowing she wouldn’t admit to needing anything and asking anyway.  She patted his shoulder and they walked to the cemetery where the grave had been dug and the world was still dewy. At the edge of the grass, everyone slid their feet free from their shoes and, with them dangling from their fingertips, crowded at the edge of the hole in the earth. 

They lowered her quickly to the sound of the elementary school choir doing a nice, if pitchy, version of Amazing Grace, interspersed incoherent mumbling and all. Ben let flower petals fall from his fingers onto the casket and then the group left, following him as he walked with Jody to his new home. It was what their town did. No one would walk home alone after a day like this. 

Later, the gravediggers would take up their shovels. Later, the smell of fresh earth would cling to their jean cuffs as they worked their way back home come morning. As they hovered over children and clicked at computers. As they forgot about what Ben could not.

Gabriel trailed behind, jacket once again slung from his fingertips as he walked towards town. Leaving Ben at his door, he made his way back to the churches, deciding he’d get his trip to town done in one go this afternoon. His grocery list crinkled in his pocket and Gabe strolled to wait for the grocery store to open. As he hovered beneath the archway, waiting for Alfie to unlock the doors and let him in, Gabe watched the rest of the town create spider webs with their feet. They crossed paths, waving and chattering as they did. Down the street, Jody with Ben’s hand in hers and the girls trailing, clambered up to the staircase of her house. The light above her front door was flickering and he watched them pile into their home before she flicked it out to nothing. It was morning after all. She didn’t need it to light the way home for Ben anymore.

Going the other way, Charlie and Gilda swung their hands between them as they made their way past their bookstore where the knitting ladies met, past the school and the doctor’s office, past the courtyard and the four parks around it on their way home. 

The parks, called the Four Corners, were divided by chalk lines upkept by the town landscaper. It was a territory thing. Each park was ‘claimed’ by a teacher from the elementary school on the first day of the school year and for the entirety of the year that’s how it remained. The teachers were chosen from a hat to make it fair. Each teacher then bribed kids to their park and the one with the most votes at the end of the year won the prized classroom for the next year. Gabe heard rumors that one teacher spent his entire paycheck buying princess dresses and prince apparel and even dragon costumes to his park only to have the teacher caddy corner give each kid a piece of gum and win on the last day of the competition. 

If they were being honest, the best classroom only meant the one closest to the lunchroom so the teacher and their students got first choice each day. Worth all that trouble? Gabe wasn’t so sure. But, it was what it was. His town was nothing if not full of wack and wisdom. Who could say which was which in this town of his?

Alfie arrived with the keys to the store and Gabe followed him inside. He filled his basket to the brim, and grabbed another at the door to fill again, all the while relishing in the way the sunlight hit the stained glass mural that hung overhead and the sound of the band for tomorrow practicing in the back. It was a screeching echoing through to touch the ceiling, but a haunting one. He paused, straining. He’d been wrong. It wasn’t a band for their weekly entertainment night, but a single person, one sound, one cello beneath delicate fingers. He hadn’t heard that before. It was chilling, heart aching. Where had all that sadness come from? When had it arrived?

“Hey Alfie?” The music stopped. Gabriel lowered his voice.

“What’s up?” Alfie called from the register at the front. 

“Who’s using the stage right now? Didn’t hear anyone come in.”

“Oh it’s-”

The bell jangled. Gabe turned away, tucking the baskets into the bottom shelf, out of sight. Gabriel waited for the customer to grab what they needed and disappear before he reemerged, setting the box of condoms he picked up as a disguise down on the shelf and grabbing his stashed baskets. He brought them to Alfie. Gabriel had forgotten about the cello already, checking out his groceries. He was out the door quickly, bags heavy on his arms. Gabriel saw no one as he walked home, his town was empty, the day was done. In their homes the whispers about the stranger began. 

Back at home, Gabriel got to work. He had a job to do when night fell. The toilet paper flapping from his roof would have to wait until morning. From the closet beneath his creaking stairs, he pulled out what he needed, scribbling a note at last minute to tie it all together.

When night fell, he shut his screen door softly behind him. Beneath the trees and through the stars, he stole through the night. Everyone was done whispering. Everyone was asleep. He breathed the scent of their spring dreams in and let the air slip softly from his lips. 

He left the basket on his arm at the door of the house, silent, silent the whole way. There was a light on inside Jody’s house, shining from the round window of the attic. Must be the new orphan she took in alongside Ben. Gabriel briefly wondered how old this one was, and then he wondered no more. Sleep was calling with her long fingers, tugging him back to bed.

When the sun came up, Jody opened her door to find a basket full to the brim with bread and fruit, crackers and juice. Groceries to last a week or two. On top was a note. 

_ For Jody and her kindness, for Ben and his strength. Always keep your light on. _

There was no signature on the note. Jody took the basket inside as the whispers from the street began, both about the stranger they had yet to see and the basket delivered overnight.

Jody, frowning, leaned inside the door and flicked on the light switch for her porch light. It clicked on steady and unwavering. Her heart swelled. She turned it off and went inside, basket on her hip. Gabriel slept through it all. He had no use for whispers. But for sleep, he had plenty.


	2. Chapter 2

Gabriel knitted. 

Every Sunday afternoon Gabriel walked to the cat-covered bookstore and sat with the ladies of the knitting club. Not to talk. Not to flirt. Not to tease them for their pastime. No. He was there to knit. He’d wandered in one of his first few days in town to browse the books. It was an accident to stumble on the semi-circle of women hunched over their yarn, fingers weaving magic while they chattered the afternoon away. When he stepped in, they fell silent. They had been talking about him.

“So,” he said after a moment of meeting all their eyes. He pulled up a chair from beside a bookshelf, “What do you want to know?”

They drowned him. They taught him to knit until his fingers ached and ached. He left the store gasping. He went home out of stories. He went home with a smile. One week later, he came back. They handed him a ball of yarn the color of sunshine and a set of needles with his name written on top. He kept coming back.

So, Gabriel knitted. He sat that afternoon in the bookstore while the cats ran rampant. One curled onto his lap, orange fur clinging to the gold blanket he’d been knitting since day one. Thing was, he may knit, but he talked a hell of a lot more. It would be a blanket. Eventually. 

Today, though, he was tired. His night had been short, his sleep restless. There was no reason for it, though his father would argue that too. The world has information that can’t get through your walls, his father would say. Open your window and sleep will come. There were things the world needed you to hear only when you are dreaming, his father would say. That is why you can’t fall asleep. 

Gabriel kept his windows closed and tossed and turned beneath the morning light.

Jody sat across from him, eyes roaming his face in silence. She cleared her throat, ready to start to talk. At her side, Donna’s fingers flew over a scarf. Becky coughed into the pillow case she’d started cross-stitching that afternoon. Claire leaned back, leather boots beside her on the floor, hands inches from her face. 

“So,” Jody began, “I had a delivery last night.”

“Oh yeah? That where the groceries came from?” Claire asked. 

“Mhmmm,” Jody said, falling silent. Gabriel, for once in his life, stayed silent. The women in the circle hardly noticed. All of them except Jody, that is. 

“How’s the new guy?” Donna cut in just as Jody was about to speak again. Gabe sighed in relief and slouched into his chair. 

“Good,” Jody rocked in her chair.

“And Ben?” 

“He’ll make it. He just needs some time and a little strength to get him through.” Jody narrowed her eyes at Gabriel across the circle. Becky sneezed again. 

“Allergies, Beck?” Gabriel asked.

“Yeah, hitting me late I guess. Weird though. There weren’t any flowers this spring. At least in my garden.”

“I heard they’re postponing the garden competition too,” Claire chimed in. “Shame, I love Garden Day. Never had it during the summer though.”

“Weird,” Donna said. “That’s never happened while I’ve lived here either.”

“Me neither, now that I think of it,” Jody said. “Maybe…”

“Maybe what?” Donna asked after the silence stretched. 

“Maybe it’s the bees,” Jody said, fingers carving out another stitch.

Chills broke out across Gabe’s body. He went stiff. The cat in his lap grumbled at him and jumped from his lap, irritated at his stiffness and the way his heartbeat pounded. He was a child again, deflated and depressed.

“The bees?” Claire asked.

Jody’s head shot up. “I always forget this is your first year here. Let me tell you about the Summers of the Bees.”

Gabriel had been seven, gap-toothed and wind-wild when he first heard those words across the dinner table. It was a neighbor, or someone his father knew. Gabriel had been too busy trying to land a piece of corn in Castiel’s ear to listen to the conversation any further. In a miracle moment, he landed on in his brother’s ear and chaos erupted mid-sentence.

He’d had to walk two blocks down in the spring night to get a pair of tweezers small enough to fish it back out. There had been no flowers dotting the sidewalk, but he hadn’t noticed. He was too busy laughing. That shit was hilarious no matter what his father said.

That night, though, as he sat on the porch steps and the night was sleep-heavy, his father rocked at his back, he asked. “Dad, what did she mean, about the bees?”

His father grinned silent and unseen. He’d been waiting years to tell Gabriel about the bees. “This town’s an old one, you and I both know that. And sometimes in old towns, strange things happen. Many folks call it a phenomenon. I call it magic. See, we live in this place of belief, of love, of laughter. Magic.    
  
“Every few summers, five or six since the last by my count, the bees come. Hundreds of them, thousands. Everyone plants their yards to the brim these summers, and then we wait. Nothing blooms until they come, that’s how we know. It’ll be a week, two weeks, then three into spring and when no color shows, the town starts to get ready. We plant more, we leave sugar water on the porch. And then, we wait. It’ll be a random afternoon, the heat sweltering maybe, while we rock on our porches. Or, it’ll be the dead of night and the town will be asleep.    
  
“The buzzing will come, faint at first. We all freeze, waiting. Was it our imagination? Was it just a car passing by? But then it’ll grow louder and we'll all know it wasn't our imagination. No, it was something better and more magical still. We hurry home. Once I left the freezer open at the store down the way and everything melted because the owner left too. Had a pretty penny to pay for that.” He paused and Gabe realized how still he’d grown while listening. He shifted against the porch steps, laying flat on his back to look past the rain gutters to where the stars grinned.    
  
“So, the bees came?” Gabe asked after the silence stretched and stretched.    
  
“So, the bees came. My first Summer of the Bees I didn’t believe what they all said. The bees choose the best of ‘em. You find bees on your lawn, your car, in your bedroom, you’re one of the lucky ones. Better still if they touch your skin. Luck lasts until the next time they come too. I shook it off. Bees landed where the flowers were. That’s all there was to it. But, then the bees came, a cloud from down the dirt road. The buzzing, though loud, wasn’t as deafening as I thought it should have been, so many of them and all. Rumor was they quieted around us, whispering too.    
  
“I stood on my porch as everyone else in town did the same and the bees, the bees chose. Every flower they landed on bloomed the next day, each person they touched wore a kind of magic for awhile. The summer they landed on my lawn, on my porch, right there on that step, I met your mother. The next, they moved past me without a stray buzz in my direction. Haven’t had one since then.”    
  
Gabe ran his hands over the porch step, hoping maybe some of the luck or magic would live there still. He didn’t know much of the world, but he knew it couldn’t hurt anything to have that sort of blessing.    
  
Gabe didn’t know it at the time, but the next Summer of the Bees would touch Lucifer and he’d be gone by autumn. That’s when the porch nights would cease and his father would spend days shut in his bedroom. But, for now, it was still magic, these nights on the porch with his father’s words and the stars, trying to find the difference between the two.   
  
“And now, another summer begins,” his father said into the night. Another summer indeed. Gabe spent weeks listening, waiting for the buzzing to come. He sat by the window in his bedroom for hours, jimmied the rusting lock to lift just an inch so he’d be able to hear if they came in the middle of the night. Spent sunburnt hours at the lake and on the porch scanning the horizon for the magic bringers.    
  
It seemed like eternities since he and his father, together, planted as many flowers as they could, bulbs green and waiting to burst in their front yard. With each one, Gabe whispered a wish to be chosen as he covered their roots in dirt. Maybe the flowers just had to ask. Seemed simple as that to him. 

Eternities and eternities passed in the form of summer days.    
  
Then the buzzing started like a scratch at the back of his throat. For a moment, he thought he was dreaming as he’d done for weeks and weeks. But, it grew louder and his father knocked at his door. It was time. The bees were coming.    
  
In his bare feet, his father waiting on the porch steps, Gabe stood in the grass of his lawn, toes tickling, while the bees arrived. It wasn’t a swarm, but a wave. One he wanted to wade into. Somehow he knew they were here for magic and luck. For love and love alone. Gabe stood with his palms outstretched and hoped for the bees to come to him. This town was his, but sometimes it didn’t fit so nice around his shoulders. Maybe with them, with their blessing, he’d end up somewhere that would button around him softer. Maybe with them, his path would stay lit until morning.   
  
That summer, he watched as the bees passed him by. Even after the passed through town, Gabe stood in his lawn beneath the stars, hoping maybe one was slow. One fell behind. His was coming.    
  
His father carried him inside after the sun started to rise and laid Gabriel in his bed, grass indents pressed against his face. They spoke not of it again.    
  
Still, without the bees blessing, Gabriel found his feet and ran. Found a town that fit better on his tongue. Found a home and made it his own. It was still a small town, sure, but it was somewhere else. Somewhere of his own choosing. He’d long since forgotten the bees. 

Now, he remembered again.

He went home that night and tore the flowers from the soil beds on either side of his porch. The bees would not come for him. He’d only end up with ant bites between his toes. When he arrived, there was his basket sat on his porch, full of homemade jam. On top was a note.

_ Thank you. _

He carried it in, knowing who had sent it and knowing too neither of them would mention it again. He tucked all of the jars into his cabinet except for one. Jar in hand he pulled homemade bread he’d been left a week prior for something else he’d done and he dipped it directly into the jam. It was sweet, strawberry, fresh and light. Gabriel brought it to his desk and while the computer booted up, he spun around in his chair, jam clinging to his teeth. Plants dotted surfaces everywhere, perched on countertop and side-table alike. They were clusters of green amongst the navy walls. There was a fireplace tucked beside the tv, but that wouldn’t be used for a long while now. It still smelled like ash, though, and Gabriel found himself hovering near it when he the world felt hollow. Something about ash and logs made it feel fuller again.

Tonight, he longed to perch on the brick ledge and bury his face inside the frame. 

Instead, he turned back to his computer, searching away. He made a note to go into town the next day. He had another job to do.

He woke early. The Monday meeting would be going on, but he knew Alfie would be manning the register at the store. His boss Michael didn’t let him take time off for town meetings, didn’t think a teenager needed to go anyway. It wasn’t fair, but Gabriel was glad for it just this once.

The morning was light and clear, the sidewalks still barren of flowers. He hadn’t noticed it before, but the lack of color was all he could see now. He looked up to catch Ben bursting from inside the school where they held town meetings during the summer months. Jody followed behind, catching the door before it clicked shut. She didn’t run, but she trailed Ben as he sprinted down the sidewalk. She made to follow but caught Gabriel’s eye instead. 

Hands in her pockets, she came up to him and fell into step at his side. “Hey.”

“You doing okay?” Gabe asked.

“Getting a lot more miles on my shoes, that’s for sure.” She sighed. “How’d you know about the running?”

Gabe shrugged. “Lost my mother really young, my brother a little later in life.”

“How’d you stop running?”

“Not sure I did. Helped when I found a place to grieve of my own.” His had been a river out his backdoor, a cloud of trees hiding him from anyone. That river still held his tears, he was sure of it. No one was the wiser. 

Ahead of them, Ben bent over his knees, gasping. Jody pulled a water bottle from her back pocket and started to jog. “See you, Gabe.”

Gabe turned towards the grocery store and Alfie greeted him as he pushed in. It was silent and it took him a moment to realize why. All the band practicers and music players were at the meeting. There was no background noise at all. He hoarded the silence for a minute, running it through his lungs. Then wished for the noise again.

From the back of the store, he loaded his basket with tiny paper packets, with crinkling bags from the floor that left his hands stained and dirty. Alfie raised his eyebrows at the number of trips Gabe made from the front to the back. After the third and without a word, Alfie followed Gabe to the back and grabbed two bags onto his shoulders. Gabriel grinned at him. When it was time to leave, Gabe leaned against the counter.

“So,” Gabriel said. “You still got that truck of yours?” 

Alfie sighed, flipping the sign to closed. He helped Gabe load everything into the back of his pickup. 

“Only because everyone’s at the meeting for another half hour,” Alfie said, starting the truck. 

“Thanks a million,” Gabe said, pressing a noisy kiss against his cheek. The kid blushed, but they both knew it meant nothing. It was just a thank you. Just Gabe being Gabe and Alfie being Alfie. That’s the great thing about this town, it made everyone who they were, in every shade and every light.

Alfie rolled down the windows and Gabe let his hand trace the wind as they passed through his town. 

“Do you ever get tired of it?” Alfie asked as he pulled up to Gabe’s drive. When Gabe turned, he gestured to the truck full of things Gabriel would be giving away. Things for everyone else.

Gabe shrugged. “Do you?”

“I’m only a grocery boy.”

“And I’m not sure what I am,” Gabe said.

Alfie paused. Blurted, “You ever think about leaving?” He wouldn’t meet Gabe’s eyes, instead scanning the outside of Gabe’s house, urgent and sharp.

“I left somewhere else a long time ago. Left a lot of places after that. Found this place, found home. You thinking about leaving?”

Alfie scoffed. “What? No.”

It was lacklustre, soft as a lie. Gabe said nothing. They unloaded the bags together and Alfie waved goodbye out his truck window, driving into town.

Gabe got to work on the logistics for the night that lay ahead. The afternoon passed quickly, night fell fast. It was time for Gabe to go to work.

* * *

He didn’t go into town after collapsing into bed when the sun was already high. He slept all day, as was the norm for this kind of thing. He always missed the morning after, but this time, the town did too. This was not a job that would appear overnight. Gabe was okay with that. He was okay with them not knowing at all. Plus, it gave him time to cover the town more, do the job as he wanted.

Tuesday passed, spent plotting. Well, more lounging than plotting, but still plotting was happening. 

“I’m a reverse villain,” Gabriel mumbled to himself. Then, his walls were shaking with laughter. “A hero. I’m a dumbass.” 

His walls knew his voice well. They loved his laughter, let it soak in and in and in.

When night fell on Tuesday, he made himself dinner, homemade pizza from tomatoes someone left at his doorstep the week before. From apples left the week before that, he put a pie into the oven to bake beneath the starlight. He always thought cooking at night made everything taste celestial, a blessing from the stars for letting them smell what he was cooking. Those days, he let his window crack open. Just for a little while.

It was not quite the witching hour, but still the air swelled. It didn’t know what to be, without the flowers. The lightness of spring, the heat-crisped leaves, it made the world a wonder. Possibility flooded the air, day after day, the landscape a canvas to paint with color still. It was a hesitation, a stutter step. While he didn’t like the reason, Gabriel sure did love the result. He sat on his porch steps cloaked in night.

From the woods, a pair of tiny eyes peered from the trunk of a tree, hearing the sound of Gabe’s sigh. It sounded like a grin. Like something tangible and light. The boy in the trees was too afraid to call out, so he studied Gabriel’s comfort instead. Jody had mentioned what Gabe had said to the boy that was always running. Ben just wanted to see what it looked like, when he no longer felt like running. He let a grin overtake him for the first time since his mother died. If he could become the man on the porch, he’d be okay.  

The oven beeped from inside the house and the sigh that had fallen over the world and Gabe both disappeared. He turned inside, bare feet on the porch wood, and made his way inside. 

Ben turned back home, still feeling the magic of that moment. Still holding it dear to his chest. It’s what he needed, a goal to run to. Find a place that felt like that.

* * *

Saturday was the Summer Sleepout. Gabriel decided to go, at least for a little while. The town crammed everyone into the parks, making sure to avoid the dividing lines, and movies played against the wall of the school. They began in the morning and the first one to go home was left with clean up the next day. Gabriel had been stuck with clean up more than once and had vowed not to waste another Sunday morning cleaning up popcorn bags and finding the owners of blankets left behind.

Gabriel had gone on two more night runs that week and wanted his Sunday for sleep. If that meant watching movies all night and sleeping in the grass, then so be it.

From his closet he pulled as many blankets as he could, draping them around himself to walk into town. He waddled more than walked, but the day was new and he didn’t mind the slowness of his step. He sang along his walk, soft but there, just in case the flowers needed a bit of love before the bees arrived. It was a lullaby his mother wrote, his father passed on in the night when he didn’t think Gabriel was awake. Maybe it would wake the flowers without needing the bees to come.

When he got to the parks, he found Charlie and Gilda set up inside the slides of the Far Park, dubbed so because it was diagonal from the school and therefore, the farthest from the kids doing the naming. Their hair was static, sticking into the air. Gabriel walked up, laughing.

“Looking good, Queen Gabriel,” Charlie called.

“You too, static sisters.”

Charlie’s hand shot up to her red hair. They laughed until it echoed off the sheer canopy overtop the play structure. It’s why they chose this park year after year, despite its distance from the movie screen. Their laughter multiplied here. Wouldn’t their happiness, their love, do the same?

The whole day was done in S’s. Salted popcorn, salad, sunflower seeds, sangrias, sweet tea, it was endless and terrible for kids with lisps.

Jody came with the whole family in tow, waving as they took over the monkey bars as per usual. They hung a huge hammock from the bars on either side and piled on for the day. Ben’s eyes kept darting back to Gabriel where he lay, where he smiled and laughed. 

A man arrived soon after, fitting into the day. 

Stranger. Smiling. Soft. 

He stood on the edge of the parks with hands tucked into his jeans, looking hesitant, looking ready to run. Jody called him over. Charlie leaned in.

“That’s the guy from her attic. Forget his name. I guess he’s been helping Ben while Jody goes to work during the day, so she doesn’t have to worry so much.”

“Hmm,” Gabriel said, watching the stranger skirt the parks to get to Jody and the gang.

He tried not to listen as the man approached the gang, helped along by the start of the movie against the wall. It was Spy Kids to begin the morning, a town favorite and also one of Gabriel’s. He did catch bits of the conversation, though.

“Sorry, Winchester. The kids took all the blankets for the fort later.”

“It’s okay,,” the man said, “I’ll be fine. Would have brought something but all I have is my sheets.”

“You brought yourself, that’s all we can ask,” Jody said, scooting the kids down until the man could squeeze onto the hammock. Ben instantly stood and moved to the man’s side, speaking more than he had in a long time. Eyes were drawn from across the park. What were we watching again? The whispers never started, eyes moving back to the screen. Sure there was a stranger, but it was Second Saturday of Summer, S’s were everywhere. Silence was supposed to be one too. He blended in.

Gabe heard Ben call the man Sam. Even better. Stranger to Sam, S, S, S. 

Sam took the kids over to the snack bar to grab goodies. Jody went to the park across the way to say hello to Donna and some of the others from knitting club. Their hammock was deserted. 

Gabriel excused himself from Charlie and Gilda and made towards the snack bar, blanket wrapped around his shoulders. When he came back, he snuck up the play set, grinned as he slid down the slide the pair were curled on. The women let out shrieks and laughter and they pounced on Gabriel in revenge. 

When they emerged from the tickle fight, all of them aching, Sam was standing over a blanket that had appeared in his seat inside the hammock, his crew of kids sitting down without noticing the addition. Sam, though, fiddled with the blanket, looking around. Jody arrived, seeing the knitted blanket in shades of gold, darted a gaze to Gabriel at the playset.

“Looks like someone left it here for you,” Jody said, meeting Gabriel’s eyes the whole time. 

“Who would do that? No one knows me.”

Jody shrugged. “In our town, it doesn’t matter. They already care.”

She settled back in for the movie, whispering something into Claire's ear. Sam stood for a moment longer until he sank into the hammock, draping the blanket over his lap, soft and delicate movements. Beneath his long fingers, it looked brighter, glowing. Maybe it was the grin that spread silent and secret across his face. Gabriel saw it briefly, then turned back to the movie. He couldn’t get caught staring. Sam was still a stranger, secrets had to be kept. He’d have to find out some of the magic in their town before they shared it with him outright.

As the first movie turned into the second, Gabe’s attention span started to wander back to the stranger swaying on the hammock. Gabe stood, moving to the unclaimed swingset, conveniently placed behind the monkey bars, where he could swing and study. All in the spirit of the day.

After the squeaking gave him away, Claire came to swing beside him.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey kiddo. How’s it going?”

She shrugged. “The usual. Apparently we’re collecting humans now.”

“Saving them, more like.”

“Nah, that’s all her.”

Gabe bit back his argument, millions of scenes of Claire and Alex, heads bent together. Claire and Alex, small smiles growing from their linked fingertips. Claire bent towards Ben, sharp but grinning. Claire walking in the middle of the summer heat to grab a chocolate bar because she knew Jody had a day the police were supposed to be made robots for. He knew she’d leave it on the counter and pretend it didn’t happen. He knew if he said anything, she’d run. “Apple doesn’t fall far, my dear.”

Claire looked at the sand beneath her feet, shifting, sifting. “I’m not from her tree.”

“Yeah well I’m not from here either, but this is my home,” Gabe said.

“I always forget you haven’t lived here for centuries. Old man,” Claire scoffed.

“Feels like it sometimes,” Gabe said, rubbing his back in mock stiffness. Her giggle was sharp land he found himself liking how it stabbed the air. “You really don’t like the new kids?”

Claire shook her head. “They’re family already.”

“Even that Mr. Winchester?”

Claire paused. “He’s running like the rest of us. Maybe this will be where he finally stops.”

Gabe nodded, let the conversation fall. The second Spy Kids blared against the wood and he turned to Claire after a moment, grinning.

“Bet you I can touch the sun first.” That’s what they were running to, wasn’t it? The sky, the sun. Something far greater than what their fingertips held.

“You’re on,” she said. They kicked off, heaving their bodies through the summer air. They hit the point of weightlessness. They became astronauts and airplanes. 

“Beat you,” Claire said in laughter. Sure enough, her hand was reaching, the sun touching her skin from beneath her black tank top. She had grasped the sun in the only way she could. It seemed to touch her back.

“Keep it close,” Gabe said, slowing down.

“In my heart,” she said, then flushed. “Or whatever.”

Claire stood once her swing had settled. She turned, “He’s a good guy, Sam. You’d like him. Does those acts of kindness shit you’re always doing”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gabriel said.

“I’m a teenager, not blind. I watched you walk over here with a blanket on your shoulders. Watched Sam smile at it as he placed it in his lap. Two plus two and all.” She walked away before he could respond. 

When night started to fall and the bakery down the street bent the rules a little and brought a table labeled ‘sweets’ to fit the the,e, Gabriel made his way to the feast. Made his way, power walked, shoved the kids out of the way so he could get there first. Same difference.

As he loaded his plate, something caught his eye from the sidewalk. Sam Winchester was starting for home. He knew no one had left yet, wasn’t sure whether Sam knew what he was signing himself up for. He abandoned his dessert plate on the table and jogged to the man before his foot his asphalt. Eyes watched, they always did.

“Hey!” Gabe called. The man didn’t pause. He didn’t think anyone would be talking to him. “Hey! Winchester!”

At that he tensed, crouched slightly. Ready to flee again. After a moment, he turned back, slow. He saw Gabe, frown deepening. Gabe tried to appear unthreatening, unassuming. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, pasted a smile on his face. “Hey! It’s Sam, right?”

Sam nodded and said nothing.

“Well, um, I’m Gabriel. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too.” Sam raised an eyebrow. Was that all there was? Gabriel fought the urge to say never. Never. With eyes like Sam’s would there ever be enough words to say?

Gabe scratched the back of his neck. “Did Jody not explain what leaving meant? You step off this sidewalk, you’ve got clean up duty, bright and early. Plus, you’ll miss the star shower, which is honestly pretty amazing. I don’t know where you’re coming from, but small city like this makes the stars like 1000 times amplified and sharp. It’s terrifying really. But anyway, just didn’t want you to walk into a job you didn’t know about.”

“Jody told me,” Sam said, simply. Gabe was suddenly aware of the disproportion of words between them. He had given so much. Sam made to leave again.

“Okay,” Gabe said, turning back. He’d tried.

“I’ll be back for the stars,” Sam said with his back turned. His voice was soft. An apology perhaps. 

A beginning.

Gabe shrugged. The man knew what he was doing. Who was Gabe to say he couldn’t clean if he wanted to. Jody caught his eye as he made his way to the dessert table again, picking from what was left behind. It wasn’t much, but he only slightly regretted abandoning his plate. He’d met the stranger on the second Saturday of Summer and his name was Sam. There was a synergy to that, wasn’t there? A rightness that had that feeling of a sigh inside of it.

She raised her eyebrows at his wandering eye. “So?” she asked.

“So?”

“What do you think of him?” she asked.

There was hardly anything there. A sentence, maybe two. But, Claire was right. 

“I like him well enough.” Meaning, he was intrigued. 

“Thought you might,” Jody said. “Saved you something.”

From behind her back came the plate piled with the food Gabe had picked out before. His heart leaped. Never had anything looked so good. He threw his arms around her. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

In his ear, she whispered. “No, thank you.”

Gabe went back and sat on the side, hip to hip with Charlie. Her hands wandered to his plate, stealing goody after goody despite Gabriel’s protests. Gilda reached over too, only once, to claim the cake pop decorated with sprinkles. He rolled his eyes, moved the plate to Charlie’s lap so they all could reach.

A gasp rang out, the movie shutting off suddenly. The star shower overhead began. Every year, the second Saturday of Summer, the stars danced and danced in the sky. No one could explain it. No one wanted to. Their town was magic, their sky too. For once, the town was silent, everyone’s eyes upturned. The stranger sank down onto the hammock just as the stars began their ballet. His breath caught audibly. Gabriel remembered his first summer spent in this town. 

Jody had taken him in just like Sam. Back then, they hadn’t found the hammock trick yet. Instead, they’d sprawled on the park benches and padded them with pillows, just the two of them. She hadn’t told him anything, but instead pointed up and waited for him to take it all in for himself. He’d embarrassed himself by letting a ‘holy shit’ slip from his lips too loud. The whole town laughed. But, that was all it took. The stars above shone brighter once he’d done that, everyone could feel it. They had been waiting for someone to marvel. They had been watiing for him to arrive.

Sam’s gasp, the way his body sighed at the sight, felt a lot like that. All the stars leaned closer too. Gabe wondered if everyone else heard it. It was softer than Gabe’s had been. Maybe he’d been the only one to hear a miracle unfurl.

From the center of the parks, where the lines met, a band started to play. It was haunting, whimsical. Gabe longed to sing words to it. Sam across the park, curled his hands against an invisible cello and let the notes find him too. The stars danced and danced and danced the night away. Gabe drifted to sleep on the plastic slide of the Far Park, dreaming of music that had long since ceased, notes sounding a lot like the gasp of a certain stranger in town.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day, Gabe blinked awake to the sun, sharp and bright and  _ too fucking early _ . That was the one downside to this tradition of theirs. Usually, they could hide from the sun and sleep and sleep and sleep. But, outside, there was nowhere to hide. As he sat up, he found the slide next to him empty of both Charlie and Gilda. They had gone to open their bookstore and feed the cats they left behind. 

The hammock at his back was strung with bodies, still, though Sam was missing. A glance around revealed his tall frame bending delicate and silent down to pick up trash around the still-sleeping town. Gabe gathered his things, wrapping the blankets around himself once again. This time, it was easier. He was one blanket short. 

Across the sand, he waddled his way towards home, meeting Sam’s eyes and nodding as he passed. When he got home, something lay on his doorstep. Something soft and made of thread. 

It was the sunlight blanket from the night before, a note placed atop it.  _ Thank you for your secret welcome. And your not so secret one. _ It wasn’t signed but Gabe knew who had left it. Knew not how Sam found his home. Knew not how Sam had known it was him. He had an inkling it was Jody, but, really, it didn’t matter. Beside the blanket was a sketch of a treehouse with the words ‘For Ben?’ scrawled across the top. It matched the handwriting on the note. 

Gabriel looked out to his forest and knew what he needed to do. He brought his blankets inside and tossed them into the laundry basket to be cleaned of static and sand. In the distance, storm clouds appeared, though Gabe knew they’d been there for hours. There wasn’t much about the everlasting sky that was sudden.

Summer showers came every year. It was no surprise to see them waving in the distance.

Inside, Gabriel showered the sand from his skin and changed into a different pair of jeans, a t shirt pulled overhead. He went with white, knowing the cat hair clung during knitting club and not wanting it to be too obvious. He was fine being a crazy cat lady, but other people weren’t so much.

Through the trees, he moved. This wasn’t uncommon. He walked through the forest more days than not, reveling in the protection and the life. But, today, his eyes were scanning the trees for branches thick enough to hold up a world. A small one, to be fair, but, a world nonetheless. Somewhere Ben could escape to. Grieve inside. Somewhere to leave his grief behind if he wanted to.  On the few he thought might work, he carved an x into the base of the trunk with a rock he picked up, apologizing for the destruction he left in their skin. They seemed to know his reason and ruffled their leaves softly in understanding.

Halfway through, he’d marked three or four and turned back towards town. He’d been moving in the opposite direction. He’d been walking away. He turned on his heel, shoes crunching against the crisping leaves, and he made his way towards the bookstore where his knitters waited. 

He walked in and everyone had circled up their chairs already, heads bent together. The bell tinkled and they all called out hellos to him. Gabe grabbed the beam bag, and sank into it. He didn’t pry, just began to knit and waited for them to resume whatever they’d been talking about before.

“So, anyway, I get a call right? Three in the morning, phone’s ringing through the house. Claire answers. It’s Bobby. Says he found Ben hiding in the bed of a truck he was working on. Scared him half to death,” Jody says. Now that she mentioned it, Gabe could see dark circles under her eyes. She was the head police officer in this town, logging long hours every day. 

“Oh, did you send Sam to get him? I saw him walk by the window. I was up for a water and he’s certainly a tall drink, don’t you think?” Becky said.

“Actually, he volunteered. Said I’d been working all day and to go back to bed,” Jody said, shrugging. “Good kid, that one.”

“This ain’t the first time Ben’s been caught somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be was it?” Donna asked. “Found him beneath my laundry hangings the other day myself.”

Jody shook her head, grimacing. “It’s hard to chase him down every time. Sorry ‘bout that Don.”

“‘S alright. Gave him a slice of pie and he left the plate behind empty,” she said, giggling. “He’s harmless.”

“Well, if he gets annoying send him on home.” At that, she frowned. “My home anyway.”

Their faces fell. Gabe cleared his throat. “So, what’s Mr. Winchester doing now he’s in town?”

Claire met Gabe’s eyes, but he shook his head. Changing the subject is all. 

Jody shrugged. “Not sure. He’s still trying to find his feet.”

“He walked here?” Gabe asked. That’s what he’d heard at least.

“Seems so. Alfie had a flat tire on the outskirts in that old truck of his. Sam stopped to help him change it when no one else would. Sam asked where the road headed, Alfie said ‘home’. Few hours later, got a knock at the door. He said Alfie pointed him my direction and that he didn’t have much but could I spare some floor space.”

“Speaking of, I’ve heard Alfie’s got the itch,” Donna cut in. Gabe winced. How had she found out?

“No,” Becky shrieked. “Sorry, I just-what would we be without him?”

“We all left from somewhere,” Gabe said. Their eyes swung towards him. The Itch to leave was not something they took lightly. There was something about this town. Once you left, you never came back. It was a rule they all upheld. All except Gabriel. He refused to turn on someone just because they wanted to see the world, wanted to explore. Wanted to live somewhere it snowed. There were so many reasons for leaving. He couldn’t blame them.

They were silent with their thoughts, weaving them into their yarn. It was the best place to leave them behind. Something soft made from thoughts of emptiness, of loss.

On the way out, Donna stopped at the door. “Hey, you guys know where I can get some seeds? For the bees, ya know? Can’t seem to find any around town.”

Becky shook her head, Claire too. Jody frowned. “Haven’t seen any either. Someone must have bought them all. Stock comes in on Mondays though, check tomorrow.”

Gabe muttered about bees into his hands, trying to avoid all the eyes he could. So, maybe he’d bought all of the seeds. But, he’d scattered them everywhere. Where was the harm in that? He knew how seriously all these guys took the bees, he figured he’d help in the only way that didn’t end in heartbreak for himself. Silently. Far from his own home.

On his way home, Gabe stopped by the store where Alfie tended the register. He picked up a few things, snacks, toothpaste, the basics. At the register, he leaned in.

“Hey, when you get seeds and soil in tomorrow, set some aside for me?”

Alfie frowned. “Same as last week?”

Gabe nodded. “Yeah. Next week I’ll leave it, but do this for me tomorrow?”

He scanned the toothpaste and told Gabe his total, nodding at his request. “Thanks Alfie, you’re the best. Keep this on the down low, yeah?”

“Sure, Gabe. See you tomorrow.” As Gabe pushed through the doors, that haunting cello started again. He paused, listening to it seep through the open door and haunt the sky. Then, Gabriel went home. He would not meddle when the music was that sad. It would hurt to know who felt that inside. 

* * *

Gabriel loved the night. He wanted to steal it forever, inhale it into his lungs to live and live and live. It was just so gentle here, so magic. His father may have been crazy, but Gabriel had seen the night come alive each time he sat on the porch, listening. Maybe it wasn’t the trees that listened, but the stars. Maybe that’s why they fell, exploded, self-combusted. The words got too heavy to hold in their hearts anymore.

He flew through the night, barefooted and light-stepped. Through his town, he moved, half-human and half-night. It was everything he ever wanted to be. 

Over the squeaking porch steps of a house fading and low-to-the-ground, he leapt and landed in silence. Grinning, he swung the backpack from his back and left it on the welcome mat, note attached with the recipient scrawled across the top in black lettering.

He moved on. Another job to do that night.

He stopped on Jody’s doorstep and hesitated. Thought for a moment. A lightbulb moment, a star born in his brain. 

On the blank paper, he scribbled. ‘ _ X marks the spots on Operation Oak.’ _ He thought about signing it, then thought better of it. He thought Jody knew about what he did after dark, but he wanted no proof for her to spread. It was his secret alone and he’d keep it that way.

On his way home, he looked up at the stars. They were grinning and he hadn’t said a word.

* * *

There was a drumming in his dreams, but they were not kind. They were sharp, pounding. Annoying. Gabriel woke up to find the pounding still there.  Which meant someone at his door. Which meant Charlie wanted him to go to the damn town meeting that morning. Rumpled and sleep-heavy on his bare feet, the wood floor creaked. He opened the door to a world much too bright, a woman too bright too.

“What happened to Gilda?” Gabe said before Charlie could ask.

“She’s not feeling well this morning. Thought I’d let her sleep.”

Gabriel snorted. “Funny, you didn’t have the same thought for me.”

“Please, Gabe. We can sit in the back and make fun of everyone.” 

“No,” Gabriel said.

From behind her back, she held out a cup and something steaming and wrapped in paper. “I brought you coffee.”

“I have coffee,” Gabriel grumbled. 

“How about a breakfast pie from Ellen’s?”

Gabe sighed. “Fine.” He snatched the wrapped heaven from her hands. Give me ten.”

“Yes!” Charlie said, pushing into his living room and flopping on the couch to wait. “Make it quick. Back row is the first to fill, much to Metatron’s irritance.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going.”

When he came back, Charlie was leaning over, squinting out the window beside his back door.

“What’s up?” Gabriel asked, trying to follower her eye.

“I think there’s a man out there.”

“What?” Gabriel said.

“I know it sounds crazy, but there’s a man out there, Gabriel.”

“In the forest?” Gabe asked, stepping towards the door. As he said it, he glimpsed the towering form. He knew who it was and why they were here. “Oh, never mind. I know who that is. No harm done.”

“What do you mean? Who is it?” Charlie asked, whirling around. “Not a figure I recognize.”

“Probably just too far away. Now, let’s go.”

“But-”

“I’m not going if you say another word. Out the door.” Gabe pointed. Charlie shut up and followed.

Down the dusty road they went, arms linked and Charlie chattering all the way. Gabriel’s brain was back in the forest and the trees. He wondered what happened when you cut a tree open full of words. Wondered what would happen if the wind never came to carry the words onward. 

His father told him the trees would die if that happened, though his father was full of shit. More often than not anyway. He sent his thoughts scattering from his father and the curling anger that lived around his image. 

Instead, he listened to Charlie talk about her most recent livestream and the number of supporters she now had.

“That’s great, Red. Thinking about closing down shop and just gaming?” Gabe asked.

Charlie laughed. “Never. My life, it’s pretty damn perfect. I wouldn’t change a thing but the time of these damn Monday meetings.”

“Witching hour?”

“Only just before. Then the ghosts might join in.”

“Wouldn’t want the dead out of the loop would we?” 

Charlie laughed. “No. We certainly wouldn’t.”

They emerged from the road that was his and his alone, skipping together onto the main road. He looked over at Charlie, just now remembering to ask what the meeting that morning was about. He asked her. She shrugged. “Never can remember what he says.”

They arrived at the doors to the dance studio where they carried in chairs to cluster for the meeting. At the door, Alfie held out crates to them both and they took them with thanks. Charlie moved to place her seat against the back wall. As she walked away, Alfie whispered to Gabriel. “Hey, order’s in for the seeds and soil. Already dropped it at your door. Kept two cases out for the shelves but that’s all.”

“You’re wonderful, thanks Alfalfa.”

Alfie’s face fell for a moment, serious and unwavering. “I uh-, I just wanted to say thanks.”

Gabriel nodded, barely perceptible. “For what?” he said aloud. 

“Nothing, nevermind,” Alfie said. But, he was grinning as Gabriel walked away to sit beside Charlie in the back.

“What was that about?” Charlie asked. Gabe shook his head. “My, my, you’re just full of mystery these days,” she said. “That’s why you live so far away isn’t it? House of secrets we can’t hear.”

“Wouldn’t sing pretty, my home,” Gabe said. 

“Doesn’t mean we don’t want to hear it.”

Metatron cleared his throat at the front of the room, mirrors duplicating his form in every direction. Gabe liked to watch the reflections more than the man. He could get lost in them and then play a game to find the real one again.

“Well, well, seems we’ve woken the sleeping giant this morning,” he began, “our illustrious Gabriel finally joining the flock.” 

Gabriel flipped him off beneath the back of the chair in front of him and snickers broke out across the room. Mirrors. Right. Metatron didn’t seem to notice, though, and looking smug at Gabriel’s blush, moved on. 

“Now, there are a few things we need to vote on this morning. For starters, the pie flavor at The Diner needs to be chosen. Any volunteers or shall we do the basics?”

“Blueberry,” someone called.

“Key lime,” another said to a chorus of agreement. 

“My ass,” Charlie whispered in Gabriel's ear. He bit his lip to hold the laughter in. Wouldn’t want any more attention for the day. He’d had plenty.

It ended up being key lime and applause broke out. Gabriel, though rolling his eyes, let himself smile. Key lime was his favorite, though he wasn’t sure he’d make it in for a slice anyway. Jobs a plenty and too much sleep to warrant a trip into town during daylight that he hadn’t scheduled in. Maybe. Maybe.

They moved on to vote for the Person of the Week which, surprise surprise, went to Metatron for the ten thousandth time in a row. He didn’t let anyone vote, though. It was all one sentence. “Okay now we’ll be voting for Person of the Week, I take it we all want to keep the same as last week? Wonderful. I’m grateful, really, for all of your support.”

They all rolled their eyes. It was the way of things. Metatron moved on with the usual thousand references to his Person of the Week title. Gabriel tried not to gag.

“Right, that’s all for voting. Next order of business is the weather. I’ve been notified by neighboring towns that this summer’s going to be a doozy in the thunderstorm department. I’ll be putting in an order for sandbags and some other storm essentials, but do make sure you all are prepared. Get your homes inspected, perhaps,” Gabriel stifled a laugh. Metatron was also the home inspector. Go figure. “And keep away from bodies of water. I know the heat’s bad, but lightning strikes are worse. With a heavy heart I have to say I’ll be closing down the town pool tomorrow.”

The children let out wails of disapproval, the adults too.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit early for that?” Gabriel called. “There isn’t a damn cloud in the sky today.”

“Not yet,” Metatron said. “But the weather’s unpredictable. Lightning could strike at any moment.”

“Not if there aren’t any clouds,” Gabe muttered. It was a losing battle. Jody gave him a nod from across the room, Claire a small smile. He’d tried at least. It was worth something.

“Now, for closing remarks, we need to talk about something with a little  _ buzz  _ around here. The bees.” Metatron looked around for snickers at his joke. None came.

Gabe’s heart sank. Why was it always the bees? His father appeared in his mind and the town fell away. 

His father was angry behind his eyes. The bees had passed them by. Gabriel had stained his pajama pants. 

Chuck made him scrub them in the sink while he drank and drank at the kitchen table the day after the bees left. He ranted about everything, found insults carved into the kitchen table to hurl and hurl. If the trees were listening, Gabriel thought, they’d turn black. That was why their house grew nothing for long enough to bloom. Why his brother would be dead soon. The bees weren’t a part of it, but they were close enough to feel half black too.

Gabe slipped out the door of the meeting, feeling Charlie’s eyes on his back. He sat on the curb and tried to think of something other than those damn bees and his damn father and the way his house caved in without moving an inch. There wasn’t anything about that life he wanted to carry into this one. 

On the curb, he traced his finger against the asphalt, rough against his fingertip. Rough, rough, rough. His brother’s voice, his father’s jabs, it all flashed and flashed through his mind. If he’d been able to step in. To soften it all. Would it have changed a thing?

Work boots appeared against the asphalt and Gabriel frowned at them. Usually, he could match the shoes to the person wearing them. But, these were worn boots and he’d never seen them in his life. He spent a moment wanting to touch the toe where it had been worn away. It looked soft. Looked a little like home should. Almost gave into the urge when a voice broke the silence.

“Uh, you okay?” It was Sam. Of course it was. He hadn’t been at the meeting as far as Gabriel could tell. He must have just returned from picking out his marked treasure.

“Dandy,” Gabriel said, eyes still down.

“Mind if I sit?” Sam asked.

“It’s a public curb.”

Sam sat at his side. Gabriel stared out across the street into the glass windows of their doctor’s office, dark for the morning.

“Operation X was a success, if you were wondering. I made the x into one of those dead guy smiley faces so I can remember which one it was.”

“Oh yeah?” Gabe asked. His finger hurt. Why did his finger hurt?

“Yeah, thought maybe you’d want to check it out too. Get a second opinion.”

“I don’t know, I think a grown man like you would be capable of drawing a smiley face onto a tree. I’ll check it out. See if you line’s smooth.”

Sam’s laughter was light and light and light. Gabriel wondered briefly if the trees could send that his way again. “Do. Always do have trouble with getting the edges even.”

“Don’t we all,” Gabe said. They sat in silence for a moment until Gabriel felt a hand against his own. Sam said nothing, didn’t acknowledge the blood coming from Gabriel’s fingertip where he’d split it open on the asphalt and continued to scratch at it. He just laid his hand flat against Gabriel’s so he could scratch it no longer and stared straight ahead at the dark office windows.

“Thanks,” Gabriel said after the urge to scratch lessened. “I just got stuck.”

It wasn’t an explanation, but he didn’t owe Sam one either. He flushed, knowing he’d shown a stranger a glimpse at the damage he held.

“Don’t we all,” Sam said. He smiled. Gabe did too. The embarrassment fluttered away and the silence returned.

“You walked here?” Gabe blurted. Sam at his side stiffened, but nodded. 

“Yeah. I walked here.”

“Seems to me not all of us get stuck, then,” Gabe said. It wasn’t an accusation. It just was. 

“A different kind of stuck, maybe. One with lots of miles and never knowing when to stop.”

The meeting at their backs let out and Sam froze. He didn’t take his hand away, but he shifted their fingers so it looked like they were holding hands, blood from his fingertip hidden in affection.

“Hey, there you are,” Charlie said standing over Gabriel. She must have seen the stiffness in his shoulders and the way Sam sat at his side. “You alright?”

Gabriel put on a smile, feeling silly at his break. He nodded. “Just tired. Some people like to  _ sleep  _ on Monday mornings.”

Charlie's shoulders relaxed. “It’s good for you. The sun, the air, the talking to more than one person in a week’s time.” Her eyes went to Sam, then back to Gabriel. The street emptied, Jody followed by her own giggling flock the last trailing down the street. 

“Hey, I’ve got knitting club. That’s four whole other people every week.”

“Still. Other people.  _ New  _ people.” 

“There aren’t new people here. It’s a town no bigger than my thumb.” Sam’s hand twitched against his own. “Except for Sammy here, of course. Sam have you met Charlie?”

“Have now,” Sam said, offering a smile but leaving his arms at his sides. 

“Nice to meet you finally Mr. Winchester. How’re you liking our town?”

“Full of treasure,” Sam said. Gabriel snorted. The bastard. 

To cover it up he mumbled something about _ really old _ treasure and kept his head down. 

“Well, thanks for coming with me,” Charlie said, shoving her hands into the pockets of her overalls. “See you later.”

“Say hi to Gilda for me,” Gabriel called as she walked away. Sam let go of his hand after one final squeeze. 

“You unstuck?” He asked.

Gabriel shrugged. “For now. You?”

Sam grinned, looking around. “For now.” He stood and offered Gabriel his hands to pull him back up. Gabriel stood in the middle of the street, taking Sam in. His eyes landed at his hips, slim, and his wrists beside them. “You’ve got blood on your hand.”

Sam shrugged. He turned on his heel and started to walk towards Jody’s house. “See you around.”

“Bye,” Gabriel said. It was a strange encounter, but he walked home and didn’t think of his father once. Strange, maybe, but it had been what he needed to get unstuck. Something new. Unexpected. Boots worn soft.

At his door, he loaded the seeds and soil into his living room. When he was done, he passed through his back door and through the trees. He found the smiley face with ease in the bark of a tree thicker than his body by at least two. The branches were wide and gracefully reaching up to the stars. 

He’d always thought that’s where the trees grew. To the stars. To touch what they could see and not have. Humans too. Trees were better equipped for the challenge, though. This one was the closest he’d ever seen and he whispered good luck into the bark of it. 

Gabriel sat against it. “Would you mind a treehouse in your branches? It’s for a boy looking for a home and a hug and maybe a glimpse of the stars every now and again.”

The wind ruffled the leaves and one landed in his lap, whole and rich green. He took that as a yes. Though it very well could have been a no. It was a tree after all. English was not it’s first language. Or second really. Their first was, well, tree. Their second, the wind. Third was music. Fourth, he supposed, was English and even then it was shaky with the speaking part of it.

At home, the day passed quickly, though he wasn’t sure where it all went, and Gabriel dreamt of worn work boots and walking until his legs fell off. Dreamt of getting unstuck only to get stuck again. Dreamt of Sam Winchester saying his name and it echoing like the grand canyon all through the world

He woke and thought of something his father said, pretended his father hadn’t said it. He always said if the trees and the wind couldn’t tell you what they needed to, they let the words linger in your bedroom until nightfall and then fed them into your dreams. He thought of the echo of his name from Sam’s lips and wondered who was hollow between the two of them. Wondered what exactly the trees were trying to say. 

Then he wondered when he’d started to believe the trees heard anything but the sound of wood growing and he dragged himself to the kitchen for coffee. His brain was hardly functional without it. That’s where the weird thoughts came from. Exhaustion. A brain lagging behind in his dreams.

The kitchen was warm with the summer sun and he realized his window had been cracked open all night. That’s where the dreams came from. He slid it shut with a crash, the vibration lingering in his palms all the while he sat at the table and sipped his coffee. 

On his porch steps, there was a first aid kit and a note scrawled across the top.  _ So the stuck don’t stay hurting too _ . Inside were bandaids and some disinfectant for his finger, open and raw. He grinned through the flush of embarrassment and tended to his finger at the kitchen sink. That Sam was certainly something new.

Gabriel didn’t go into town that day. Not until nightfall when the town was asleep. He had seeds to scatter and hide beneath soil. At this point he’d covered most of the porches and windowsills of his town, so the rest went to edges of the sidewalks and the lines of chalk fading in the middle of the parks. They’d be trampled when school began, but when flowers bloomed in the summer it was something magic. A border of color and life much nicer than the flat white that was there at the moment. Though he dreaded the bees, he wouldn’t mind the flowers that followed.

On his way back through his sleeping town, Gabriel glimpsed in the window of the shoe store a pair of work boots, spotless and stiff. He stepped closer, peering into the darkened store. Gabriel made a note to return the next day and tried to push away the nagging thought at just how much he’d been coming into town recently. It was fine. It was his town. There was no harm in living in it.

At home, he stared out into the trees from his porch and words itched at his throat. But, that was his father and he couldn’t be his father. So, he went inside and kept his lips sealed, windows too. He dreamt of nothing he could remember by daylight.


	4. Chapter 4

Gabriel approached the shoe store as Ben went sprinting by, plowing into his shoulder enough to make Gabriel stumble back. Ben muttered apologies, but towards Gabe’s house he continued, running, running. Jody appeared soon after, in her police uniform and looking wearied. 

“You alright?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Gabe said rubbing his shoulder and the bruise that bloomed faster than flowers below his skin. “I’ve got him. You go back to work.”

“You sure?” she asked. “Don’t you have something to do?”

“It can wait.” Gabe turned on his heel before she could argue and took off into a jog behind Ben’s retreating form. He found him bent over his knees on the edge of the parks, gasping and sniffling alike. 

“Ben, buddy, you gotta cut me a break,” Gabe gasped. “Trust me?”

Ben eyed Gabriel from the sidewalk, unyielding and tense. 

“Well fine, I’m going to go lay on top of the far playground. You decide what we’re going to do this afternoon. I’m tired, though. I’d like a rest before we continue.”

Ben didn’t move. Gabriel shrugged, climbing to the top of the play structure and laying flat in the middle of the holy flooring. His chest heaved and out of the corner of his eye, he caught Ben moving closer and closer, tiptoeing. At the bottom, he climbed the rungs of the ladder and turned, letting his feet dangle over the edge as he leaned back too. Above them, the sky was bright and clear. In the distance, clouds hovered always and forever. They hadn’t tried to seige their town yet. Some summers they never did.

Ben sighed, breath evening out to something resembling normal. Gabriel’s too. They sat in the summer air and breathed together in silence. After a while, Gabe turned to find Ben staring, one single tear sliding down his cheek. He turned back to the sky.

“I once was a prince,” Gabriel said. Ben didn’t say anything, but Gabriel kept going. “My father was the king of the castle I used to live in. He trained me every day. Here is how to lead. Here is how to speak without cotton or crack. This is how to smile without meaning an inch. All I heard was this is how to hide. 

“My brother lost it first and ran. That’s where I learned how, watching him disappear. He didn’t last long. The roads were long, his mind too jumbled and grieving to pay attention long enough to navigate. He died. Then,I ran too.

“I ran the whole way here, Ben. That’s what I’m trying to say. I ran until I found this place and I knew it was safe and quiet. I’ll help you find a place like that, if you want. You don’t have to say anything. All I’m saying is I get it and I’m here if you’d like a sidekick. I’ll even wear the spandex if it would make things better.”

Ben giggled. They fell silent. “Thanks, Gabriel.”

“You’re welcome, buddy. Now, want to keep running? I think I caught my breath.”

“No. Let’s just stay here a bit. It’s safe and quiet, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, yeah it is. If I got get something will you wait here?”

Ben nodded without question. Gabriel maneuvered himself down the slide and took off at a jog into town. He went into the shoe store and grabbed what he needed before moving to The Diner. There he ordered two styrofoam to-go containers full of key lime pie to take back to their picnic in the park. On the park. Whatever.

Time passed and he started to worry. What if it got loud again and Ben took off while he wasn’t there? No one would be there to follow him. Gabe craned his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of Ben on the playground while he stopped at his last errand for the day and headed back.

Instead of seeing Ben, all he saw was empty sku and felt the breath whoosh from his lungs. He’d collided with something taller than a wall and more solid still. The person hardly stumbled while the things in Gabe’s arms went scattering as he tried to find stable ground again. Strong hands grabbed his shoulders and held him still until his feet stopped rocking from the collision and Gabe looked up to find Sam Winchester standing tall and steady in front of him. He had a face of shock, one Gabe hadn’t seen before.

“Are you alright?” Sam asked.

Gabe took stock quickly. He seemed okay. He said so. 

“Oh god, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

“I never do, it’s okay Sammo.”

Sam’s eyes were downcast and he started to curse before he dropped to his knees. Gabe was left cold where Sam’s fingers had been wrapped around his arms, before he caught onto what Sam was doing and joined him on the sidewalk. All of his things lay spilled and splattered on the ground. The pieces of pie were smeared into the ground, sprung from their box. The bag from the shoestore lay upended and empty, the pair of shoes he’d bought along with a few other things lay scattered. Sam’s hands gathered everything he could, shoving it all back into the plastic bag in a hurry, apologizing the whole way.

“Really, Sam it’s fine. You might want to get up though, the pie’s sinking into your jeans,” Gabe said, seeing that Sam was knelt in the middle of the spill and his knees were turning green. It was smeared across his hands too. He hardly seemed to notice.

“Your’s too,” Sam snorted. “You move, I move.”

Gabe narrowed his eyes and stayed put. He’d played chicken too many times to know there was a challenge in Sam’s voice. He was smirking to match Gabriel’s and he settled in to wait. “No way. You’re moving first, Winchester.”

Sam shook his head. “Not a chance. You’re too stubborn for your own good.”

“Same could be said about you, man.”

“You hardly know me.”

“Ditto,” Gabriel said. Sam held out the plastic bag now full of his things and slightly smeared with key lime pie filling and crumbs, but still intact. “Where were you off to?”

Sam shrugged. “Nowhere in particular. Just, walking.”

“Thought you’d had enough of that for a lifetime.”

“Long distances maybe, but I still like to walk.”

Gabe frowned. “Don’t your feet get tired?”

Sam shrugged. “Not really.”

“Really? I followed Ben for a solid five minutes and I’m exhausted. That reminds me. As much as I’d love to win this weird game of chicken, Ben’s waiting.” Gabe held out his hands. “Truce?”

Sam took Gabe’s hands into his own, both of theirs covered in pie remains. They stood up together, the sidewalk a mess beneath them. “Truce.”

“Why’s it that everytime I see you, you end up a mess by the end of it?” Gabe teased.

Sam’s eyes glinted in the sun, all the colors of summer sun and sand and sea. “Maybe I could use a bit of a mess. But shit, let me go get you some more pie or something.”

“No way. I’ll go back and say I dropped it. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“But you were headed to the store. I can get your stuff so Ben isn’t waiting.”

“Actually, I was just going to order stuff for Operation X. Order what you need. Tell Alfie I sent you and he’ll take care of it.”

“Oh no, it’s alright. I’ve got it covered.”

“Sam Winchester this is not something I’m backing down on. My forest, my tree, my decision.”

Sam mumbled something about how a forest doesn’t actually belong to anyone, but he agreed and turned to go into the grocery store. “Thanks, Gabriel.”

“See you around, Sam. Ben and I are having a picnic on the park if you’d like to join us when you’re done.”

“Maybe I will,” Sam said and he disappeared through the glass door. He called out to Alfie just inside the door, voice warm and familiar. He hadn’t been here long, when had that happened?

Back at The Diner, remnants of pie still smeared on his clothing, Ellen burst out laughing and handed over two more pieces of pie. “Careful now or I’ll run out,” she teased as he left. “You’ll have the whole town at your throat.”

“I’ll just show ‘em where I dropped the other pieces and watch them lick the sidewalk,” he said. She was still laughing as he left. He waved through the window, heading back to Ben.

When he arrived at the bottom of the play structure, there was a Sam Winchester laying with his legs hanging down the slide nearest Ben, staring at the sky. Gabriel noisily maneuvered himself back up to the center and sat cross-legged, pulling the pie and plastic forks out, thankful he’d grabbed an extra just in case.

“Oh nice, pie!” Ben said, sitting up to dig into one of the pieces. Gabe laughed at his enthusiasm and pushed the other piece towards Sam with an outstretched fork. Sam scooted until he was across from Gabriel and he gestured to Gabe too. They’d share. No arguing. Gabe held up his hands with a smirk.  _ Me argue? _ He said. 

Sam narrowed his eyes.  _ Yes, you argue. Not this time. _

_ Fine, _ Gabe shrugged. He was grinning, Sam too across from him. When Ben spoke, they both jumped. How long had they been staring? Speaking silently to each other atop this playground?

“Sam, Gabe told me he used to be a prince but he left home too, like you.”

“Oh yeah?” Sam asked, eyes turning to Gabe.

Gabe flushed, shrugged. “Not really a prince. But, I was the mayor’s kid. And, I did leave. Found this place. It felt like home before I even passed all the way through.”

“Why’d you leave?” Sam asked.

“His brother, or was that exaggerated too?” Ben asked. Gabriel smiled.

“No, no exaggeration there. My brother died. I blamed my father.”

“Was it his fault?” Sam asked, gentler than the sky. 

Gabe shrugged. “A little bit yes, a little bit no. I blamed him anyway, and couldn’t stay.” Sam nodded. “Got lots of stories of the towns I tried on before this one if either of you ever need a laugh.”

“Oh yeah?” Ben asked. “Let’s hear one.”

“First Sammy here’s got to tell us why he wandered here, then I’ll tell you all about the town that outlawed pants.” At Sam’s glare, Gabe shrugged. “It’s only fair.”

Sam nodded, assenting. It was fair. “My father’s path for me, if you could even call it that, was a block of concrete. I couldn’t even turn my head. My father wanted it that way, needed it that way. He was alone in the whole parenting thing. It was the only way he thought we’d turn out okay. It backfired, as you can probably tell. Now,” Sam held out his arms, “here I am.”

“To stay?” Ben asked, eyes hopeful. 

Sam shrugged, not meeting Ben’s eyes. He was still trying the town on his shoulders. Gabe knew that look, knew how that felt. Knew Sam wouldn’t have an answer until he did. 

“So, town of outlawed pants,” Gabe said, pulling Ben’s gaze. “Right, so there I was eighteen, hitchhiking my way across the dry, dry state of Arizona. My driver breaks down just outside this town a little bit bigger than ours. I shrugged and after the guy got help, bid him adieu. That place was as good as any to try, right? 

“So, I’m walking along this long paved road into town and it’s all silence. Keep in mind it’s mid-afternoon on a Saturday. Busy hours. People hours. But, there was no one. Not a soul. I wandered through their empty town, half convinced no one lived there except for the swish of curtains I’d seen in a house near the center and the fact that all the grass was green despite the heat. So, I found a shaded spot and fell asleep. I woke up to a tap on the shoulder and opened my eyes to a woman with no pants on, a man behind her in much the same state. Needless to say, I was confused. 

“They took me to the town center and each person I passed was in their underwear, some of them less than that. Nothing else. I asked the woman about it and she looked down like she’d forgotten she wasn’t wearing any to begin with.

“‘Oh,’ she said, ‘our town outlawed pants a long time ago. That’s why we sleep all day. Sunburns are a bitch this time of year.’

“‘Outlawed pants?’ I asked her. She told me, by pure accident, a sixteen year old got the seat of mayor for a day. He passed a law outlawing pants. No one ever changed it.”

“Well, what did you do?” Ben asked, giggling.

“Well, I was in a town that outlawed pants. I took my jeans off and stayed for a week.”

“Why didn’t you stay forever?” Ben asked. 

Gabe looked around at his town. He shrugged. “Can’t really explain it. Didn’t feel like this. Like home.”

“You keep saying that, ‘feels like home’. What’s that feel like?” Sam asked. Gabriel could tell he was looking for that in himself. 

“Different for everyone, I think. I needed somewhere with softer words and some space to call my own. Somewhere with people I loved and who loved me without asking for more than I can give. I found the home in the forest in shambles and just  _ knew  _ that’s where I’d live for as long as the town let me.”

“Hmm,” Sam said, falling silent. The corners of his mouth turned down and Gabe itched to tug them back up. 

“Oh, Ben. I have a surprise for you, buddy,” Gabriel said, snapping. He gathered the plastic bag from behind his back.

“A surprise?”

“Yeah, I know how much you’ve been running recently and saw these at the shoe store down the way. Thought you might like them.” Gabe held out the pair of shoes, all black with red trim, memory foam soles. Ben’s eyes lit up. Without a moment’s hesitation, he tore the tattered shoes from his feet and slid them into the new ones, jumping down to test them out. 

“Don't go too far!” Gabe called after him. 

“Okay!” Ben said back. “I just want to try them!”

Watching Ben zoom across the parks, Sam took a breath, opened his mouth, shut it again. He wanted to ask Gabriel something. Wanted to ask Gabriel how his brother had died. Gabe knew it. It’s what everyone wanted to know.

“Motorcycle accident. He was running too far, too fast. He was running blind,” Gabe said.

“Oh,” Sam said. “Sorry.”

“That’s what you were going to ask right?”

“Well, no. Actually, I was just going to say it was a good thing you weren’t commando when you wound up in that Arizona town.”

Gabe’s head shot up to find Sam grinning. The little shit. Gabriel shoved at Sam’s shoulder and they both laughed into the summer sky. Ben started to disappear towards his home and Sam jumped up.

“I’ll take it from here,” he said. “Thanks for the pie. And for listening.”

“Thanks for keeping us company,” Gabe said. “And for reminding me not to go commando in case of any more unfortunate run-ins with the law.”

Sam snickered, sliding down the green plastic slide at his feet and coming up with his hair staticky and sticking in all directions. He waved as he started to jog after Ben. Gabriel found himself waving at his back long after Sam could see him no longer. 

On his way home, Gabriel swung by Jody’s house and left the bag from the shoestore on the doorstep with Sam’s name written atop it. He couldn’t find a pen. Inside were shoe inserts made of memory foam, bandages, blister spray. On the receipt he wrote,  _ So getting stuck won’t hurt so bad if it this isn’t the place to get unstuck. _

He went home to find Alfie had delivered some pieces of wood and bags full of boxes of nails to his porch. Sighing, Gabriel moved it all to the backyard just in case anyone walked by. The bags he moved to the back porch too, tucked away in case those clouds looming decided to drop by in the night. When his front porch was clear of any evidence, Gabriel went inside. He showered off the pie and sweat from the day and settled in for a night in.

A knock at his back door jarred him from dozing on the couch. He grabbed the remote to use as a weapon just in case, adrenaline pumping, and he tiptoed to peer out the glass doors. His shoulders relaxed when he saw a familiar form sitting on his porch steps, looking towards the trees where the stars were coming out.

Gabe slid the door open and, at the noise, Sam turned, a sheepish grin on his dimpled face. He too had showered the day off of his skin and was in a faded t-shirt and jeans, work boot clad even now.

“Hey,” Sam said. “You’re not going to maul me with that are you?”

Gabe remembered the remote clutched in his hands and he flushed. He tossed it back inside the house, wincing as it clattered against the tile. “I’d be mauling you with my hands if that were ever going to happen. Hello, pecks,” Gabe teased. What? The t-shirt Sam had picked was thin, tight across his shoulders. 

Sam looked down at his chest before quirking his eyebrow at Gabe who winked. He rolled his eyes and turned back to the trees. “Sorry to bother you. Were you sleeping?”

“I do that a lot, no biggie. What’s up?”

“Just wondering if you’d help me carry the stuff to the tree. You ever check it out, by the way?”

“Yeah, looks smooth enough. Smile’s a little big for a dead guy.”

Sam snorted, rolling his eyes. Gabe slid his feet into the boots he left by the back door. Sam winced. 

“No socks?”

Gabe shrugged. “What’s wrong with not wearing socks?”

“Well, for one thing, blisters,” Sam said.

Gabe smirked. “I hear they make some sort of spray for that.”

“Oh yeah. Magic stuff. Appears on doorsteps in the middle of the afternoon sometimes I hear.”

“Weird. You must have got an angel watching over you or something.”

Sam snorted. “I don’t think angels look out for heel blisters.”

“No? Well, you’re lucky then. Really thorough one you’ve got.” Gabe loaded his arms with the bags of nails and tools. Sam quirked an eyebrow and went to grab one of the wall pieces of wood to start to carry. “Watch your step there big guy,” Gabe said as he headed into the trees.

“Gee thanks,” Sam said, muffled from the strain and the huge piece of wood blocking his face. “Just don’t let me run into anything.”

“I won't let you down.” Gabe called out as they passed through the tree bark and falling darkness. “Tree, tree, hey look another tree,” he said as an oof echoed behind him.

“Not helping,” Sam said, trying to peer around the wood he was carrying to see what it was he’d run into. “At all.”

Gabe laughed and started forward only to run dead into a wild branch of a tree at perfect height to smack him across his face. It hit him dead in the bridge of his nose, pain blooming warm beneath his face. His eyes watered and the bags went tumbling as his hands covered his face. Something was wet when he touched it, but he couldn’t tell if it was blood or tears. 

“Oh shit, Gabe.” Sam dropped the wood in his hands without a care of where it landed. His hands were soft on Gabe’s as he pried them off his face.

“No, Sam, I’m good.”

“Gabe, just let me see.”

Gabe sighed and let his hands fall. Sam’s fingers were soft, pushing against his cheekbone and nose, moving towards the bridge of his nose with increasing pain as he went. Gabe watched the crease between Sam’s eyebrows and tried not to wince. His eyes this close matched the sky more than anything, a nebula of summer and stars all in one. Gabe let the air hiss from his lungs, for once wanting the trees to capture this moment and send it back his way. 

Sam’s hands fell in an instant. He misunderstood. Gabe wasn’t willing to correct him, winced instead to make it more believable.

“Oh god, sorry.”

“It’s fine, Sam. How’s it look?”

“I don’t think anything’s broken, but you’ll have a shiner tomorrow.”

“Just what my face needs is more attention,” Gabe grumbled. A headache started to ache behind his eyes.

“Pretty face like yours? You’ll be fine.” Sam rolled his eyes. “Let’s get you back for some ice.”

“No, no I’ve got all night to ice my face. Let’s get the stuff moved and then I can ice my face while I pass out.”

“Gabe-”

“No arguing. I’m  _ injured  _ you have to listen to me,” Gabe said, smirking. He loaded his arms with the bags and moved to grab the wood too. Sam scrambled after him, yanking half the bags from his arms and grabbing the other side of the wood piece. In that manner they made their way through the trees until they found their way to the one marked and tall. It took a few more trips and stumbles, but they carried the rest of the stuff before the moon was at its peak and Sam followed Gabe inside. 

“To make sure you put ice on that shiner,” he said. It was a fair reason. The minute Gabe slid his feet from his boots, he flopped onto the couch and was half asleep. He jolted when the icepack hit his face, jolted more still when Sam Winchester’s soft hands appeared against his skin to press it into the bruising.

“Shh,” Sam said, star-soft, “shh.”

Gabriel blinked through the plastic bag Sam had made the icepack out of, vision blurred. He could see a small smile on Sam’s face through it, and how he sat back on his socked feet like he was staying for awhile. He was a stranger, sure, but Gabe knew he wanted to see Sam without his boots on more often. His shoulders were softer, his smile too. He was not tensing to run. Not at the moment. 

Gabe wondered if there was anything on earth that fed on smiles. 

Then, he fell asleep. When he awoke, he knew his house was empty. There was no noise of life inside beyond himself. That and Sam’s boots were gone, a note waiting for him on the coffee table.

_ There are two ice packs in the freezer. Wonder how those got there. You must have an angel too. _

His reflection in the glass of water he retrieved was more purple than skin and he vowed not to look in the mirror in his bathroom. Vowed not to leave the house at all. It was Wednesday, he had no reason to venture. Also his nose hurt like a bitch and he didn’t want to have to explain the bruising away. The trees had voices and fists, as it turns out. 

He, grumblingly, grabbed an ice pack from the freezer and flopped back down on the couch to let the cold grow unbearable, seeping beneath his skin. He had a feeling Sam would know if he didn’t. 

Gabe did shower, but he breezed past the mirror with only a short glance at the purple across his nose. It was a sight, more than a little color. Tomorrow, he’d own it. Today, he’d get the pain to fade. 

His brother told him once there was nothing to a blemish once the pain was gone but a little more color to the day. They’d been drinking on the rooftop, hiding from everything but the stars. Castiel had bruises on his kneecaps, Gabriel too. Their father had dropped his bottle of whiskey on the tile and left it to stain for hours. Gabriel didn’t want to make Castiel scrub it by himself. He’d already been scrubbing long enough to go unfocused when Gabriel came home from school to find him on the kitchen floor. They’d finished scrubbing together, Michael and Lucifer stepping over them to get to their rooms. Gabe grumbled, but he’d grabbed Michael’s toothbrush to do the deed so it didn’t bother him long.

They grabbed a bottle from the cabinet and passed it back and forth when they were done with the best they could do. The grout was stained, but the rest looked okay enough. 

“Why do we stay?” Gabriel asked an hour in. “Why do we keep trying to fix this shit?”

Castiel took a sip. “If we don’t try, nothing will ever be good again.”

“Is any of it good anyway? Doesn’t seem so.”

“There is always good. Without us, the town will crumble.”

“We’re only kids,” Gabe said. The bottle was empty, dangling from his fingertips.

“Not really.”

Gabe sighed. “Not really’s right. Now, what’s your bet on pops this time?”

“Gabriel.”

“I think, with the weather turning, it’ll be a hibernation. A week, ten days before a door opening. Another week before a word spills.”

Castiel shoved at his shoulder but said nothing. That was usually agreement in a softer form. Castiel never meant to harm anything, never said a dark word. Gabriel did it for him. 

They didn’t go to school the next day. It was their reward for their effort, Gabriel reasoned. Cas didn’t disagree so that had to count for something. He'd been right on two counts. It was even funnier to watch Michael brush his teeth with the toothbrush Gabe had used to scrub the floor. 

It was three weeks before his father spoke. 

Gabriel didn't know what it was that sent him into hibernation. Winter took different forms for him, he supposed. Unpredictable. Full of grieving. 

They scattered in the wind, all his brothers. All except Castiel who took over the mayorship when his father finally relented his power and retired to his study permanently. He hoped the town was happy. His brother, too. He hadn't ever gone back to see if they were.

Now, he had color for the day. Color for a week or so, if he was being honest. And hey, purple wasn't so bad. He dreaded the yellow. It made his skin look pale. But, that would pass too. 

For the morning he alternated slipping into dreams and changing out his ice pack, keeping his face as still as possible. Any wrinkle, any twitch, sent sharpness through his skull. Which was fine when he was alone. But, late afternoon lull fell, a sweltering lullaby with clouds looming closer, and a knock rattled his door. 

Gabriel let the ice pack fall as he stood, resisting the urge to try to wipe the sleep away. He remembered his bruises and dropped his hand. Sam winced when Gabe spilled onto the porch, face dewy and cold still.

“Nope,” Sam said.

“No what?”

“I was going to say we could start to build today, but not a chance. That looks painful. I'll start alone.”

“What, no way you're doing this alone. This may have been your idea but it's my tree.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Trees are free.”

“And violent.” 

“And violent. Wouldn't want you getting attacked like me. Not with face like yours. I bet bruises would make you irresistible.”

“Would you now?” Sam snorted. He shoved his hands into his jeans and turned towards the trees. “I'm not backing down no matter how many times you call my face pretty. You're not building today.”

Gabe shrugged, going back inside without a word. He grabbed an ice pack, and slid his feet into shoes. Grabbed a blanket and a few bottles of water. 

Outside Sam was already in the trees, but it didn't take long for Gabriel to catch up.

“Gabe,” Sam groaned.

“What? All you said was I couldn't build. I can supervise. And keep you entertained.”

Sam snorted. “How do you propose you're going to do that?”

“Sarcastic remarks, complimenting your face, stories and stories, singing like a bird. Your choice really.”

“You sing?” Sam said, peering at Gabe out the corner of his eye. As he stepped over a fallen trunk, he wrapped his hand around Gabe’s arm and helped him across without a word.

Gabe regretted mentioning it. “Sure. When I don’t want the trees to know what I’m saying. My father used to say they held onto music longer than words so they’d be distracted. Only chance for some peace. For a private moment.”

“Trees?” Sam asked. And he wasn’t laughing, no mocking in his voice. He was just asking. Just curious. That was all.

“Mhmm. Used to tell me the trees fed on words. Used the wind to send them along.”

“That why you dream with other people’s voices sometimes?” Sam asked.

“I guess so. That’s why I sleep with the windows shut,” Gabe joked, but his voice was bitter. Sam made no comment as they arrived at the tree. Sam began to scout out the tree, heaving himself up the branches with ease, muscles in his arms and back rippling. Gabe cleared his throat and set about spreading out a blanket beneath him.

“Got anything you want to say that the trees can’t hear?” Gabe called up to Sam. 

“Nah, I don’t mind what they hear.”

“No? Hmm,” Gabe paused. “What kind of stories did your parents tell you when you were a kid? Mine was obviously wackadoo.”

Sam grunted as he tested his weight on one of the branches, sending a rain of leaves down on Gabriel below. He huffed, plucking them from his hair. They were rich green and crisping at the edges from the summer sun.

“None, really. My mom probably did, but I was too young to remember any of it by the time she died.”

“Your dad wasn’t a story-teller?” Gabe asked gently.

Sam snorted something bitter and black. “No. Didn’t really offer more words than hello and goodbye.”

Gabe shrugged, not wanting to push more than he was allowed to. “Some stories can be short.”

“Not that short.”

“No,” Gabe agreed. “Maybe not that short.”

Sam tested another branch and sent more green rain fluttering down. “Talked a lot about monsters, though. The ones out in the world, waiting for me. Had a path for me all laid out without them, apparently.”

“I’m guessing this wasn’t exactly part of that plan?” Gabe asked.

“No. Definitely not.”

“So,” Gabe said, “how are those monsters treating you?”

Sam smiled down at Gabriel. “You know, I haven’t found many of them in my travels. Wondering if maybe he’d exaggerated a little.”

“Or if you just haven’t run into them yet. Sometimes they don’t come out until you stay long enough for them to feel comfortable.”

“You’ve stayed. Found anything scary?”

Gabe shrugged. “Nothing I can’t handle. Not here at least. That pants-less town got real creepy after awhile. Terrible mosquito infestation plus no pants equals itching in places so not fun. Couldn’t sit for a week without wanting to scratch my skin off.”

“You’ve been everywhere,” Sam said. “How long did it take you to get here?”

“Lifetimes,” Gabe said with a sigh. He laid back and tried to count the stars from between the leaves of the treetops.

“But, you’re here now. You’ve found your home, in the end.”

“Yeah, I sure did,” Gabe said. “How’s it looking up there?”

“I think this tree is sort of perfect. Sturdy, strong, won’t have to cut many branches either.”

“Good because I told the tree we wouldn’t hurt it,” Gabe said.

“Thought you didn’t want the trees knowing your voice?” Sam asked.

“This is worth it, I think. Asking something simple don’t say much about me.”

Sam went quiet for a moment and above his head the stars danced. Gabe closed his eyes, wishing he’d brought an ice pack. With all the talking, he’d been jarring the bruises beneath his skin and it had turned into a consistent throb. He’d dropped into a half-sleep and almost missed it when Sam responded.

“That’d you’d ask at all says a lot, I think.” He said it quiet, soft. Gabriel turned it into a lullaby and fell asleep to the sound of Sam’s voice. 

He blinked awake to Sam’s hands on his face, fingers gentle.

“Sorry, just making sure it’s not broken. I went to get ice, but if you want to go back that’s fine. I can be done for the night.”

“No, that’s alright. I’m cozy.” Gabe took the ice Sam pressed against his nose, and watched Sam maneuver himself back into the tree. “Hey,” he frowned, “where’d you get the ice?”

“Oh, well I wasn’t sure your back door would be open and you were asleep anyway so I went down to The Diner to get some from Ellen.”

“You walked the mile and a half to get ice from Ellen for my not-broken nose?” Gabe asked. 

“Yeah,” Sam said. Simple. A shrug. “Also I may or may not have snagged the last two pieces of that key lime pie.”

“You didn’t,” Gabe said, jerking up. Sure enough two magical looking pieces of pie lay on the edge of his blanket inside a take-out box, plastic forks and napkins too. He lunged, but Sam stopped him.

“Hey, not until you ice for ten minutes.”

“But mom,” Gabe whined.

“Shut up and ice that pretty face of yours.”

“You think I’m pretty,” Gabe called up, singsong.

Sam snorted. “Hey, you’re the one that said I was pretty first.”

Above, Sam had started to install the beams between branches while Gabe slept, setting up the foundation for Ben’s new hideaway. They had a long way to go, but it was the middle of the night and Gabe called for Sam to finish up for the day. They’d share their pie and get some rest before the sun came out again.

Sam came down from the tree branches, sending an avalanche following him down. 

“Looks like you’re the one leaving a mess behind this time,” Gabe said as Sam shook the leaves from his hair and shoulders. Gabriel shrugged the ones that settled onto his skin off, leaning down to brush the rest off his legs and the blanket. Before he sat back up, Gabriel felt fingers brushing through his hair and he looked up to find Sam, leaf in between his fingers. 

“Looks like it,” he said with a grin. He tossed the leaf aside and held out a plastic fork for Gabriel to take, and they ate beneath the stars together in the middle of the forest with no flowers.

When the sun appeared far off in the distance, Sam picked up the blanket beneath them and shook out the leaves. Hr tossed it over his shoulder. Sam walked with Gabe to his back door and held out the blanket from the bottom step of his porch. 

“Ice your face,” Sam said, shoving his hands into his pockets. Now that the sun was up it seemed the wall of his shoulders was back and standing tall. The muscles in his jaw tensing. He hid his hands from the world now, instead of offering them to the night. Gabe crossed his arms over his chest, a similar feeling in his chest. What they were doing, building together, was to be done in night alone. That is where the magic and monsters lived after all, so that’s where they’d exist for awhile.

“Oh, what was it that you called my face earlier? Can’t seem to remember,” Gabe called as Sam turned to leave. Sam snorted and tossed a wave over his shoulder as he disappeared around the corner of Gabe’s house.


	5. Chapter 5

The sun came up and Gabe couldn’t sleep. He iced his face and showered the night away, watching the water swirl down the drain. He pulled on a dark v-neck t-shirt and a pair of jeans and decided he’d head into town for the afternoon. Walk around, maybe see if Charlie wanted to get some food. Spend some time in his town without needing to be somewhere else. Now that Sam was here, asking about how Gabe knew this was  _ his _ town, he had new eyes in his head. He saw his town as he did all those years ago. Saw potential for both magic and monsters alike there in his streets. 

As he walked, he found himself longing for the bees only for the color they’d bring. The town was different in the spring, but this spring had been postponed. He wanted the color. Wanted something to break up all the dark green and dirt. The forest would be covered in enough yellow to drown in. Gabriel wondered if he’d find the color of Sam’s eyes in the flowers, now he knew what to look for. Perhaps in the parks’ borders lined with sunflowers. That would be the first place he checked.

The bees had scorned him. They hadn’t wanted him. It was how his life had always been. So, sure he wanted to flowers, but he’d hide away when the bees came buzzing. He’d let them pass and pretend they didn’t exist at all.

Gabe strolled along the street, the sun’s heat gentler than it should have been for the time of day. He thanked it for that blessing by walking slower as he made his way into town. 

When he arrived, he went into the grocery store first. Alfie waved as he walked in and went back to reading a book he had set on the small counter space he had in front of the register. It looked like a book on travel, on leaving, but Gabe didn't let his eyes linger long. He knew how this town was about the ones who wanted to leave. Knew Aflie knew that too. He wouldn't look unless Aflie asked him too. 

Gabe wandered around the store, not needing a thing but enjoying how the sunlight glinted through the stained glass. It painted the tile of the store into watery slivers of sunlight shades of green and blue and orange. Where the sun came through the stained glass sunset, Gabriel held up his fingers, letting the light paint his skin all the colors of the sky. As the dust particles danced and the light hit his skin, one haunting note struck through the store, bouncing off the walls to the ceiling. 

It struck his spine, singing. He longed to add words to the music that followed after a beat of silence, longed to write the story of that lost note and something swimming in sadness. It was ghostly, ghastly. It sounded like something that would come surging when they finally cracked open the center of the Earth. 

He let the notes sink into his skin, standing still to keep himself grounded while he listened. 

He was a child again and the stars were singing a lullaby that had existed for millions of years. He was a child again, dozing on his rooftop while his father shrank in on himself inside the house. He was a child again, staring at the stars and hearing only sorrow coming back.

The door jangled. He was a man again. 

“It’s time,” the voice called through the doorway, “Guys, _ it’s time _ .”

Alfie’s eyes found his and the echo of music stopped hanging over the room. Whoever it was at the door was already gone, empty space left behind. It took Gabe’s brain a moment to catch up, to go from childhood back again. 

Aflie already had his apron off, had started towards the door with a backwards glance, by the time Gabe realized what was happening. It was time. 

“You coming this year?” Alfie asked.

Gabe nodded. “Yeah, I think I will.”

“Yes!” Alfie cheered and out the door they went, Alfie locking the door and tucking the key into the loose brick in the door frame. Everyone knew it was there. Not once had someone taken anything from the store while Alfie wasn’t there.

They walked side by side to the open field on the opposite side of town as Gabe’s home. It was late afternoon, and Gabe couldn’t remember the time passing so quickly. The sky was orange, aflame. He found himself grinning, light-footed. He hadn’t come last year, but this year he wouldn’t miss it for the world. This year felt different. Charged. Gabriel was finally reaching.

At the clearing in the trees, the people of his town were already clumped together. Benches had been carried in, the bases from last year pulled from whoever’s closet they had landed in. Metatron had two boxes of hats tucked at the back of his feet, and he scanned the growing crowd with a raised eyebrow. 

Gabe too scanned the crowd, searching. He spotted Charlie with Gilda on a blanket further down by first base, spotted Jody with her gang beneath the trees. Jody waved and Gabe mouthed to her. “Where’s Sam?”

She shrugged, pointed back through the trees towards her home. Gabe pushed through the crowd, mumbling pardons and excuse me's as he did, stopping closer to Jody so he could hear her. 

“Where is he?”

“He didn’t think he’d be welcome,” Jody said, rolling her eyes.

Gabe groaned. “Idiot.”

Without a word, Gabe started to jog through the trees. Fucking idiot Winchester was going to make him miss the first pitch. 

His town was empty as he sprinted through it and the sun started to slide down into its midnight coffin across the treeline. It looked like the clouds were starting to creep closer than the day before, a small circle of emptiness above their town of purple and orange. 

He bounded up the stairs to Jody’s place and started to pound on the door.

“Sam, come on! Open up!” Gabe called, his voice echoing on and on. His knuckles started to hurt. He switched hands.

The door swung open to a barefoot Sam Winchester, dripping wet from a shower. “Hey,” he said.

“You’re coming with me.”

“What?”

“To the game. Come on. I know you want to.”

“But Jody said everyone plays. I didn’t think-”

Gabe put both his hands on Sam’s shoulders. “Look at me. Look at my face. I’m dead serious when I say you are coming with me. Now, get your shoes or you’re playing ball barefoot.”

Sam sighed, stepping back into the living room and moving the door shut. It was a moment of heartbreak. One Gabriel had been on the other side of thousands of times. An invitation crushed.

“Sam Winchester!” Gabe started to yell.

“What?” Sam said, emerging from where he had bent over behind the door, shoes in hand. “Trust me, I’m not about to mess with whatever brand of crazy you’ve got going on.”

“It’s a brand called you’re an idiot to think we don’t want you around.”

Sam just looked at him as he slid his socks onto his feet, his shoes following. “Lead the way.”

“Gladly,” Gabe said, and together they started towards the field. He half-jogged the whole way, cursing Sam for having such large legs. He was hardly hurrying at all, but Gabe at his side was winded. Walking in the shadow of a giant was supposed to be bad, but what of following his footsteps?

When they emerged through the trees, Gabe was relieved to see the game hadn’t started. The relief held only until every set of eyes swung his and Sam’s way when he finally made it to the group. He raised his eyebrows, flashed a smile. 

“Well, well, well, since you’ve taken so much time out of your busy schedule, Mr. Novak, why don’t we make you a team captain this year? You too, Mr. Winchester.”

Sam started to stutter excuses at Gabe’s back, but Gabe wrapped his hand around Sam’s wrist and started to walk them both to the center. 

“What’s wrong, Winchester? Scared my team’ll beat yours?”

Sam smirked, the excuses falling away. “Not in a million years, shortie.” He leaned in close, though, and whispered in Gabe’s ear. “Not sure I’ve got everyone’s names down, though.”

Gabe winked at him. He whispered back, “I’ve got you.”

Sam beamed at him, the smirk returning full force as Metatron shoved the box of red hats into his arms. He looked at the crowd, shifting on their feet and his eyes took on a bit of a dazed quality. He was lost, the sea in front of him, threatening to drown him.

Gabe jumped in, box of hats in hand. “Okay, listen up. Today, we’re going by nicknames and nicknames alone, yeah? I’m dishing them out and that’s how it will be.” The group in front of him started to laugh. Perfect. “Now, my first pick is Sneaks.” He pointed at Ben in the crowd.

Ben beamed, coming from the front of the group to catch the blue hat Gabe had tossed him. “Sneaks okay with you?”

Ben nodded. “Yeah!”

“Great. Now, Walking Giant, your turn!” Gabriel turned to Sam who started to scan the crowd. He chose Alfie and Gabe called out a nickname to follow as he shoved the red hat atop his head. Alfalfa. A classic. 

On and on they went, nicknames to cover up anytime Sam had to, blushingly, ask for a person’s name. It only happened two or three times before their boxes were empty and the crowd was gone. The ones who opted not to play moved in closer, an umpire chosen at random as usual. It ended up being Bobby, to everyone’s delight. 

This is how it went. Once a year, when the time felt right and the kids were out of school, someone made the decision. They passed on the news through whispers until night began to fall. That’s when they gathered. That’s when they played. 

Last year, the red team won. This year, Gabriel wasn’t going to let that happen.

Sam and Gabe met at the plate while their teams called dibs on batting order and positions for the first inning. It wasn’t ever anything solid, the hour of the night and the closeness of the game determining the inning after. 

“Gabriel, Samuel, let’s agree to a friendly game right here and now boys,” Bobby said as Gabe mock glared at Sam across home. 

“Never,” Gabriel growled. 

Sam burst out laughing as Bobby thwacked him across the back of the head.

“Of course, Bobby,” Sam said, laughter in his voice.

Gabriel rubbed the back of his head, grin gone. “Geez, yeah Bobby, I’ll behave.”

“Sure you will,” both Sam and Bobby said at the same time. 

Sam held up his hand to high five Bobby and Gabriel smirked. Bobby would never. Sam would earn a hit to the head for that. But, he watched in horror, Sam meeting his eyes with a grin, as Bobby begrudgingly hit his hand.

“Alright. Let’s get this show started. Call it in the air, Winchester.”

Sam called heads and the coin landed in the dirt. They all crouched over, the field silent on either side. Bobby stood, quarter in between his fingers. 

“It’s heads!” 

Sam’s team erupted into cheers, acting like the moon landing had happened all over again and the game hadn’t even started.

“What’s your choice?” Bobby asked Sam. 

Sam tapped his chin. “We’ll take the field first. Home team.”

Gabriel wondered if this was starting to feel like home for Sam. He hoped it was anyway.

“You heard the man, let’s play ball,” Bobby called out across the field. The teams started to jeer as Sam’s team ran out onto the field. Gabriel watched them scatter, Alfie taking the pitching position, Sam sauntering past him to catch. Gabriel picked up one of the bats that sat against the tree they were using as the backstop. It’s limbs were massive, reaching in every direction. It would catch anything thrown at it. He wouldn’t be surprised if stars were hidden somewhere near the top, fallen from the sky and cooling.

He watched Alfie warm up, stretching out his arms as he watched. The sun had set, but the lights from the church had been carried to light up the field. He slid his hat backwards, Gabriel liking the fit better that way. 

He stepped up to the plate, one foot in the box they’d made of pink sidewalk chalk. It was the best they had on hand, the landscaper in the next town over to pick up extra work during the summer.

“Let’s go Gabe!” Ben called. Charlie too whooped at him from his side of the bench. 

“Hey,” Sam called. “You didn’t get a nickname. That’s not fair to the rest of us.”

“Fine. Choose one, Walking Giant,” Gabe said, looking down at where Sam crouched, glove in hand. 

“Batter up,” Bobby called. Gabriel looked away from the reflection of stars in Sam’s eyes, to where Alfie stood on the makeshift pitcher’s mound. He wound up and sent the softball sailing. It was too far outside for Gabe’s arms to reach, so he let it pass into Sam’s glove who sent it back to Alfie.

“Hmm,” Sam said. “Maybe it should be Angel of the Night.”

Gabriel snorted. “Yeah right. That’s so not me.”

He stepped into the box again as Alfie wound up. This time, it was closer. Gabe swung, but was met with only empty air. He grinned at Sam’s team’s jeers, sending a wink towards Alfie as he grinned. The kid was good, what could he say?

“Maybe it should be Blind as a Bat,” Sam teased.

“Shut up, I’m injured.”

Sam snorted. “Don’t think that affects your vision.”

Gabe touched his face ginglerly, squinting his eyes. “You wouldn’t know, you’re not the one with bruises on your face.”

“No. I’m not the one that walked into a branch either.”

“That how that shiner happened?” Bobby asked at Sam’s back. Gabriel could hear laughter seeping through his voice and he glared down at Sam.

“Batter up, Blindy,” Bobby said as the glare-off Gabe had fallen into with Sam drew on too long. 

Everyone started to laugh and Gabe bit back a smile, mocking being irritated as he stepped into the box. Alfie sent the pitch flying from his fingers and Gabe smacked it into center field, letting the bat fall from his fingers as he took off running. He made it to second before Jo got the ball back in from the treeline and he caught his breath as Ben took his place at the plate. 

With Ben, the jeering softened. Cheering came from both sides. He had his hands at the bottom of the bat and when Alfie sent the first pitch sailing, he swung with all his might and missed. 

Sam nodded and slid his glove back on, crouching to take the next pitch. This time, Ben swung and missed again. His shoulders fell. It was one thing for towers to fall. Another to watch a home crumble to pieces. Ben was no tower, but he was crumbling. They all could see it.

Sam leaned in after he threw the ball back to Alfie, shrugging the glove off his hand and letting it fall into the dirt. He knelt in front of Ben, whispering too quietly for Gabriel to hear out at second. If it had been anyone else, two different people stopping the game, there’d have been an uproar. But, it was Ben and it was Sam, so no one seemed to mind. 

Sam gestured to Ben’s hands on the bat, having him move them up from the bottom a bit. He had Ben test it out, then moved them a few inches further up. Ben swung and seemed to have found a comfort there with the bat in hand. His shoulders were taller. His face full of fire. 

“Come on, Sneaks!” Gabe called. “Hit me home, my man. I think we all want to see Sam’s face as I score on his ass! I mean butt. Sorry, Jody.”

Ben laughed at the plate and stepped into the box. Alfie sent the ball sailing and Ben made contact. He sent the ball rocketing between second and short, it rolling all the way out to Ellen in left field. The place went crazy with their cheering and Gabe sprinted home, hitting Sam’s ass as he passed him and stomped on the plate. 

“I win,” Gabe said. “We scored first.”

Sam called for Ellen to send the ball his way and he took a small step closer to Gabriel. “Now, now, don’t be so quick there.”

Sam tagged Gabriel with the ball in his glove and, through barely muffled laughter, Bobby called, “Out!”

“What?” Gabe yelled. “Are you blind?”

“No, but I think you are,” Bobby said. “You missed home by a mile.”

Gabe looked down, seeing just how far home was from his feet. He’d gone further out of his way to smack Sam’s ass than he’d thought and wound up stomping on empty dirt instead of the plate they’d laid from plastic. He grumbled his way back to the end of his team’s line, earning scoldings and laughter alike. But, there was no malice in it. No hurt or harm done. 

Ben was smiling, Sam too when he looked over between pitches and winked, and Gabe was glad to have come. 

They played until one in the morning, Sam’s team winning, and handily at that. Gabe’s team called him Blindy all the while and he knew that name would stick like no other.

He stayed to clean up, Sam too, and they carried the lights and benches back to where they belonged while their teams wandered back to their homes. Sam and Gabe were used to the night, used to not having slept by the time the sun was up. Gabriel didn’t mind staying later, especially not when he had company. 

“Sorry about earlier,” Sam said, on the other end of a long wooden bench from the high school.

“It’s all good, I was the idiot that wanted a piece of your ass and missed where I was going.”

Sam snorted. “Guess I’m just too distracting.”

“You? Maybe not. That ass is basketball shorts? Hells yes.”

Sam shook his head, laughter behind his eyes. “You’re not so bad yourself, Angel of the Night.”

“Ohh, no more Blindy then?”

“Oh, my bad.  _ Blind _ Angel of the Night.”

“Seems to be a conflict of interests there.”

Sam laughed, setting down the bench to open the doors to the school’s lunch room. “Just makes life a bit harder. Sometimes it’s worth the effort.”

“Sometimes, indeed. Think it’d get me laid? That’d be worth the effort.”

Sam huffed as he walked backwards into the room, setting the bench down for good in it’s old home and wiping the sweat from his forehead. “Don’t think you need to change anything for that. Though, people do dig superheroes.”

“Not sure Blind Angel’s a great superhero name there.”

“No? You’d be B.A. Tell everyone you’re a badass,” Sam said, making his way out the door and towards the field again. “ I’m not sure they’d believe you, but still.”

He bumped Gabe with his shoulder and Gabe sputtered his disapproval. “Rude. I’m a badass. See these bruises? Only badasses get bruises like these.”

“Blind ones, maybe. And badasses don’t usually bring up bruises this often either. They tend not to care.”

“Well, then I’ll be a badass of my own kind.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Sam asked. Together, they picked up the next bench and started the walk towards the school again. They were silent as they walked and Gabe took the time to study Sam across the way, Sam’s eyes wandering around the town as he walked. He was softer, here, the tension gone. Gabe liked soft Sam. He’d begun to see him more. Had begun to love him a little too.

“Find what you’re looking for out there?” Gabe asked when Sam’s eyes kept wandering through the sleeping town. Sam’s eyes swung back his way, settling soft on his own. 

“Maybe,” he shrugged. “Maybe.”

They cleared the field within the next hour and Gabe walked Sam to his door before moving past to his own home. 

“Wait,” Sam called from halfway up the stairs. Gabe stopped, turning back to Sam as he bounded down the stairs to meet him in the street where he stood. He was moments away, half a second from crashing into Gabriel. It wouldn’t take but a whisper to close the distance. Not a world apart, but the sliver of the wind. “I just wanted to say thanks. For coming to get me.”

“Of course, Sam. If you could see yourself out there, you’d never think you’re unwelcome again.”

“Really?” Sam asked, eyes down. 

“Really. This town loves you.”

Sam said nothing. Gabe thought there was a tremor between his shoulders. He looked towards the sky. He tugged the cap off his head and, without a word, pulled Sam’s off his own head. “And,” Gabe said, sliding his blue hat onto Sam’s head, putting Sam’s red one onto his own, “if you ever feel unwelcome again, come find me. I’ll always be Team Sam.”

Before Sam could respond, Gabe shoved his hands into his pockets and started back home, Sam’s hat atop his head. 


	6. Chapter 6

On his way to knitting club, the clouds closed in on the sky. The air swelled, a threat on the tip of his tongue. He felt it in his lungs each time he breathed. Gabriel dropped his head and hurried his way to the bookstore.

When he arrived, Jody was missing. He sat down, a cat pouncing on his open lap the instant he did. He let his hands card through it’s long hair and he caught Claire’s eyes across the circle. “Where’s Jody this afternoon?”

“She’ll be here in a bit. Ben had a bit of an issue. Ran when my back was turned and none of us could find him.”

Gabe tensed to go help look. “They find him?”

“Yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Roof of the church.”

“Church Church?” Gabe asked. “Or Market Church?”

“Market, I think. Easier access.”

“Sure, sure,” Gabe said. “Sound logic.” There were metal fire-escape stairs leading to the roof of that church. Apparently they used to hold choir practice in the attic and needed an emergency exit. The Church Church had no attic and so no stairs.

There had been words running through his head, ones he thought would go with the music he’d heard in the market. A boy, born to a story teller. A boy, trying to untangle himself from the stories that had grown around him as he grew too. The ending was hazy, he hadn’t heard the end of the song. Did the boy grow into the stories, did he find a space of silence to sing?

He hummed along to it as he knitted. “That’s nice,” Becky said.

“Oh, thanks.” Gabe said, frowning. “Any of you heard the music in the Market Church every once in awhile. Cello music, I think?”

Becky shook her head, Claire too. Donna, though, leaned in. “Haven’t heard it there, but I did the other night when I went on a walk. Coming from by Jody’s, I thought.” 

Claire shrugged when Gabe looked at her, but she dropped her gaze quickly and he wasn’t sure what that meant. He’d have to ask later, have to ask someone who offered more words. Jody or Ben, maybe.

“I’ll ask around,” Gabe said. Jody or Ben or-

The door jingled, Sam came in from the street. It had started to rain, spattering against the glass windows of the shop. Gabe hadn’t noticed. Until now as Sam appeared, rubbing the water droplets from his hair. He waved to Claire, then his eyes found Gabriel. He was suddenly struck by embarrassment, cat covered and knitting needles in hand. He tried not to let it show as Sam walked over and sank into the seat next to him.

“Hey,” he greeted. “Mind if I sit?”

“Course not. Care to knit a bit?” Gabriel asked.

Sam smiled. “Don’t know how.”

“Pity, it’s fun,” Donna chimed in. 

“I’m sure Gabe could teach you,” Claire called across the circle. 

“Yeah, we can if you want to,” Gabe said. “You’re more than welcome to join us.”

“Maybe I will,” Sam said. “Was it you that made the blanket from the movie night?”

“The sunset one?” Becky asked. When Sam nodded, she scooted one seat closer to Sam. “Yeah that was Gabe. Want me to make you one like it?”

“No, no. That’s alright,” Sam said. He leaned in towards Gabe. “Just wondering. I thought it was pretty cool.”

“Still not admitting to that blanket,” Gabe mumbled. “So, what brings you in here?”

Sam shrugged. “Bit bored, really. Thought I’d get out of the rain and find a book to read at the same time. Want to help me look?”

Gabe set his needle and yarn in the seat next to him, shifting slightly to get the cat on his lap to move. “Sure. Though I’m not sure I’ll be much of any help.”

“That’s alright,” Sam said. Together, they made their way into the other room of the bookstore where they kept their shelves stocked to the brim. Sam stopped in the doorway, a breath caught on his lips. Gabe nudged him and grinned. 

“I know,” he said, and snagged Sam’s fingers to tug him deeper into the walls of books. Sam’s fingers twitched and Gabe dropped his hand, trying to act casual as he picked up the nearest book. But, when he turned around, he knew why Sam’s fingers twitched. Knew it wasn’t because he didn’t like Gabe holding his hand, though that fact was still up in the air. No. Sam stood, eyes wide, awe over his face. His fingers ran along the spines of the books, letting out gentle taps as they slid from one to the next. His eyes darted, his mouth was open. 

Gabe forgot the book in his hands and watched Sam begin to scan the titles of the shelf, eyes jumping forward before he forced himself to settle, go back. Gabe realized that Sam was the type to read every single one, just in case he missed something good. He knew right at that moment he’d be there for hours, watching Sam. 

Across the store, whispers began to form, bouncing off the back of hands tucked in front of mouths. The plants on the windowsill above the register leaned in, listening too.  _ Did you see the way Gabriel grabbed Sam’s hand? Did you see the way Sam grinned down at their fingers together? _

But, Sam and Gabe weren’t there to hear. They spent their afternoon wandering through the shelves, Gabe watching Sam and smiling too. The pile tucked against Sam’s chest grew and grew until he was leaning around them just to look for more. 

Gabriel snorted and Sam stiffened, smile falling. In a flash, Gabriel swiped the stack of books from Sam’s hands and gestured for him to keep going. He wasn’t making fun of him, just laughing at the tower he was building of paper. Sam’s shoulders relaxed and he went back to scanning the spines. 

“Oh, this looks cool,” he whispered, pulling a book the color of midnight from the shelves. Sam read the back of the book and then sank to the floor, opening to the first page. 

“ _ When I was a child, my mother took me to the sea. She thought I’d fall in love with it the way she did. I waded in with her hand in mine, trusting her,”  _ Sam read aloud. He glanced up at Gabe, shifting the books in his arms. Sam hardly noticed as he set them down on the carpet to listen. “ _ I lost her hand, the waves dragging me beneath the water. I hadn’t known the ocean could be so sharp. My feet scratched, the salt bit at my throat. I hadn’t known before that the ocean knew how to burn.  _

_ “When I emerged from the surf, salt between my teeth, I sank onto my waiting towel. ‘Are you okay?’ my mother asked. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing but water came from my lungs. Seems the ocean had no voice, so it tried to claim what it could.  _

_ “I didn’t know how to explain it to my family, my friends. But, my mother didn’t ask anything more of my voice, and so the day passed at the waterside. In the sand at my feet, I wrote the words  _ I think the ocean stole my voice _ , and waited for my mother to find my eyes again so I could show her. As if she could tell, her head turned, a worry etched into the corner of her eyes. I pointed to the sand, but it was untouched.  _

_ “We went home and I could feel the water swelling inside my chest, crashing against my ribcage. The ocean stole my voice. I stole a piece of it back.” _

Sam spent the afternoon reading from this book, something of a mashup between memoir and fiction. Something in it must have hit home, goosebumps covering Sam’s arms the entire time he read. When he finished the first chapter and added the book to the pile, he lay back on the carpet instead of going off in search of more. His eyes were unfocused. His finger, tracing words into the carpet, though Gabe couldn’t make them out. 

Gabriel lay back too, his head resting perpendicular to Sam’s chest, Sam’s fingers against Gabe’s ear. The carpet fibers were loud this close, but they had no voice either. Sam was staring at the ceiling and Gabe thought maybe he got lost in those waves. Thought maybe he needed something to ground him. He reached out and lifted Sam’s hand onto Gabe’s palm.

“You can write on me, if you lost your voice out there,” Gabe whispered. Sam’s fingers were still in his palm until, slowly, he began to trace words. Gabe couldn’t catch them all, but he got most of it. It became a game.  _ Hi _ was easy.  _ Rainfall _ , harder. Then it was,  _ I think that book stole my voice.  _

“It’ll find you again,” Gabe said. “We’ve got all day.”

In his palm, Sam began to write again.  _ I want to live somewhere blooming _ .

Gabe turned his head to catch Sam’s eyes, no longer trained on the ceiling. He looked earnest, looked a little lost. Gabriel, though, didn’t have an answer for that one. 

“Wait until summer ends,” he said, while wanting to say,  _ me too. _ His childhood home had never bloomed like he wanted. Hadn’t ever been flowered with etch marks of their heights as they grew, nor gap-toothed pictures. No dents or scuff marks littered the hallways and the only sound the walls held was silence. “Until the bees.”

At least his home now used to belong to someone alive. There were signs everywhere for Gabriel to hold onto. A boot-mark pressed into the front door, the fading of the wood planks on the floor. 

Sam stopped writing, instead tracing swirls into Gabriel’s palm. He sighed, letting his eyes slide closed. Tingles spread from Gabe’s palm to his spine, soft and gentle. Sam’s fingers continued to move, but Gabriel knew his eyes were still closed. In the yellow light, shelves creating a cocoon around them both, Sam was the softest shade of gold Gabriel had ever seen. He wondered if they sold that color in yarn and if he could knit the world a blanket so it would never not be that color. In the very least, he wanted to knit Sam a blanket, so he’d know what Gabriel saw.

He tried to document it as best as he could and then his eyes slid closed to the feel of Sam’s fingers tracing ocean waves against his palm. He had a fleeting thought that this ocean might steal his voice and he’d be okay if it gave the ocean a voice to use. A way for this ocean to find home.

The whispers in the front room began again when Charlie passed by to find Sam and Gabe both asleep, fingers interlocked, Gabe’s head against Sam’s stomach. But, only the plants were there to hear Charlie whispering to Gilda about just how precious they looked. The rain stopped the whispers from getting out into the world. At least for the night. For now, it would be theirs, this moment. So, they slept.

When Gabe woke up, Sam and the pile of books were gone. Beneath his head was a blanket and Gabe didn’t know if it was Charlie or Sam that left it there. It wasn’t one he recognized, so he thought it was the latter. He’d spent many nights wrapped up at Charlie’s place.

His boots had been pulled off in his slumber and inside his right boot was a note.  _ Thanks for waiting with me for my voice to come back. _

Gabe folded up the note and tucked it into his pocket to stay. He decided not to bother with his boots and let them dangle from his fingers as he wandered out to the front of the store. Night had fallen, the clouds too, so all there was was star-scattered darkness and the newly freshened air to walk through. On the table by the register, Gabe’s knitting things sat in a pile and he flushed before remembering he had nothing to flush at. They had wandered through shelves, they had fallen asleep. There was nothing to that. 

The night sang as he wandered through it, a lullaby he ached to sing along to. He let it swell inside his chest, humming along the sidewalk. It bounced around, off buildings, going up the stars and coming back again to meet his ears, hollow and wanting. It fell flat without the words, but he wasn’t ready for the trees to hear those yet. 

He wasn’t sure there was anything he could sing that he wanted inside the heart of something so alive. 

The ground was still damp beneath his feet and he slid his socks off, stuffing them into the inside of one of his boots. It was nice against his toes, the damp sidewalk. Felt like childhood, a cold sort of softness in a place it shouldn't have existed. 

Above, the clouds have moved off in search of water, but Gabriel knew they’d be back. For now, there were stars and sidewalk, and he smiled as he hummed his way home. In the dirt, his feet picked up mud, but that too was soft and he didn’t mind it. 

He went around back to hose the mud off his feet before going into the house. At the door he dropped his boots and, making wet footprints on his wood floor, he made his way into the kitchen. He had already slept. He’d be awake until the sun came up. He pulled out the jam that had been left at his door and made himself toast to munch on. In the reflection of the toaster, he could see the bruises around his nose had finally begin to heal, yellowing as they faded. They hurt no longer when he smiled. He noticed only because it seemed he could not stop his lips from turning skyward. When had that happened, he wondered. 

His toast popped up, steaming, and he forgot to wonder where his smile had come from. Instead he dove into the jar, scooping it out with chunks of bread. For the first time in years, Gabriel slid open the window, paint and pane creaking as he did, to let the smell of rain in. He stood at the windowsill and breathed the fresh world in, finally, finally, finding the words he’d been writing for the haunting the music. He let them slip from his lips in freedom as he swayed in his kitchen. As he began to clean the crumbs. As he thought about Sam and Alfie. Stormclouds and bees. Sam and Sam and Sam.

* * *

Gabriel opened his door the next morning to find Alfie sat on his porch steps, hunched over. At the sound of the hinges, he straightened his back and turned to Gabriel. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Gabe said. He tried not to let his surprise show at finding someone waiting for him so early. It was a miracle he was up at this hour and he wondered if Alfie would have waited all day. It was Monday, town meeting day. The only reason he could have left the store at all. “What’s up?”

“I-uh, I just came to say hey,” Alfie said, staring down the dirt path into town. Gabriel could sniff that lie out a mile away, so he padded, barefoot, to the step beside Alfie and sank down onto it, wood splinters catching on his sweatpants.

They sat in silence a moment, Gabriel trying to untangle all the things that brought them here. Alfie, though, was one of the Chosen from the beginning of summer. Gabriel had to do his best to try.

He took a breath. “There once was a boy, prince to a castle, who looked a lot like me. Devilishly handsome, charmingly charming. His father was a story-teller which meant he knew how to make words into weapons. In this castle the boy lived, the words in the walls grew and grew, stealing the air from the rooms. He started to suffocate, started to keep his words inside so they didn’t add to the flood. It took him a long time to work up the courage to leave, took a brother leaving first to show him exactly how. 

“That brother, though, knew no destination. He ran to run. The boy, now closer to a man, had no destination either. Not something I- _ he’d _ recommend. If you were thinking about running. Or walking. Leaving at a slow jog.”

Afie was quiet a moment, hands fiddling with something in his pocket. He pulled out a brochure, one from a bright-colored college campus, full of flowers and green. “I know where I want to run. I’m just not sure I belong there.”

Gabriel slid the brochure from his fingers, glancing over it. It was a good school, expensive too. Gabe didn’t know how to ask where the money was coming from. 

At Gabe’s eyes, Alfie spoke again. “They offered me a scholarship. Had to squirrel the mail away from my family. Good thing I’m up earlier than them so I could hide all this stuff.”

Gabe nodded. He knew how insistent Alfie’s family was. Don’t dream too big, don’t wander too far. They lost a child years and years ago before Alfie could even talk. Gabe wasn’t too familiar with the particulars. Only that the child died in much the same way his own brother did. Running. Gabriel knew Alfie’s parents were trying to save him. But, this town wasn’t the way to do it for someone like Alfie. He’d suffocate here like Gabe almost did. “Do it.”

“What?” Alfie’s head shot up. 

“Do it. When do you go?”

“Orientation is the end of July, I’d start classes in mid August.”

Gabriel nodded. It was early June, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. Summer had a way of slipping through his fingers, year after year. “Okay, what do we need to do?”

“We?” Alfie said, voice soft. His eyes were wavering and Gabe reached out a hand, squeezing Alfie’s shoulder.

“Yeah, we. Now, I’ve got homework for you okay? We’ve got like a month before you need to be ready for orientation. A month to get travel plans ready and get everything confirmed, break the news to your folks is probably something to work in there, though that’s up to you. We need a list of things to do, a list of things you need for your dorm and for school too.”

“Okay,” Alfie said. “I’ve been saving money since freshman year from the grocery store.”

Gabe nodded. “So, come by on Monday mornings then, for planning. I’ll be awake sooner next time, I think the meeting’s about to let out.”

Alfie jumped up from the steps, shoving the brochure into his pocket. “Right. Okay. See you next week.”

“Alfie,” Gabe called after him. He turned. “You forgot this.” Gabriel tossed him the rolled up apron that sat on the porch steps and Alfie caught it with a grin. 

“Thanks, Gabriel. For everything.”

“Course, kid. Now go. Do work. Tell everyone I say they’re losers for getting up early on a Monday for a town meeting.”

Aflie waved, laughter echoing from his lips. It was like it had seeped into his step too, light and bouncing, as he made his way back to work. Gabriel wasn’t sure how they’d do this, but he knew it had to be done and he was the only one in town that knew how to make it happen.

That night, as the clouds moved in again to cover the stars, Gabriel snuck in the darkness to Jody’s porch. He had the blanket Sam had left for him, his note still tucked into his pocket. He had a map of the town, a compass too.  _ If you think here’s where you belong, study everything. If not, keep this for the memories. _

At home, he began to knit and spent hours doing it, thread the color of night woven with the gold of starlight. He could see the finish in his mind, knew also it would take at least a week to get there. He’d work on it in his free time, he’d work on it all night. 

* * *

The next night, Sam knocked on his door, but there was no one home. Gabriel had already gone, boot-clad, into the forest to build Ben’s treehouse. He was swinging in the branches, singing along to the tune from the night before, words materializing, as he laid the foundation for the floor alone.

Sam cleared his throat. Gabriel froze, losing his footing, reaching out to catch himself before he plummeted to the ground. He caught himself and sent Sam a dazzling smile.

“That was beautiful,” Sam said. 

“I know,” Gabriel said, righting himself against the branches. “Cat-like reflexes.”

“Not that, that was a mess,” Sam said, laughing. “The song I meant. What was it?”

Gabriel shrugged. “Something to go with a tune I heard a few days ago.”

“You wrote that?”

Gabriel shrugged. “It’s not great. Just something to keep the trees ocupado.” They had been singing it into his window for a while, all through the day before and this one too.

“This is going to sound strange,” Sam began.

“I love strange.”

Sam paused, climbing the stairs leading to the center of the tree to stand beside Gabriel in the frame of the treehouse. “I think I dreamt that song.”

“Guess the trees thought you needed it,” Gabe said, turning his back. Something about Sam’s eyes and how they felt like he was showing the world his heart made him need to look away. 

They fell into working in silence, save for the sharpness of the hammer as they drove nails home. After a few hours, the moon just barely visible through thin cloud cover, Sam sat against a tree branch and tilted his head upwards. 

“Are the trees listening?” Sam asked. Gabe shrugged. His father hadn’t ever taught him how to tell. 

“Not sure. Why? There something you don’t want them hearing?” 

Sam blinked, slow. “No. Just something I’m not sure I want carved into forever, you know?”

“Yeah,” Gabe said. He knew. “I bet they aren’t. Not yet. Can’t you see them dancing?”

Despite the absence of wind as the clouds went to fetch water, the trees had been swaying all night. If that’s how they knew music was overtaking them, then there would be no ears to hear them tonight.  Sam took a breath. “I think this might be the place I fit.”

Gabe wasn’t sure he meant here, beneath the stars and in the branches of the strongest tree they could find, or if he meant this town and all the people in it. It didn’t matter. He felt it too. But, he said nothing, instead reaching out to grab Sam’s hand, brushing his thumb over the soft skin that lived there. Sam slid his fingers in between Gabriel’s and they stared up at the shadow of stars through the treetops for a moment Gabriel wanted to keep forever. There’s a cathedral out there that is see-through in the sunlight, but it was night now and the walls were solid and sure. Both of them could feel the walls, but didn’t mind for the way their hands were still linked. If they could see each other through this, the sunlight would only make things all the more beautiful.

Sam cleared his throat as the first raindrop from the clouds come back splashed his forehead, pulling Gabe up by the hand. “Let’s get out of here before the sky falls.”

“Let’s,” Gabe says, following Sam down their make-shift ladder. They walked back towards Gabe’s house as it began to pour and, even through the rain, Sam moved closer to wrap his fingers around Gabe’s again. They hurried through the water, rain cold against Gabe’s skin, and stopped to catch their breath beneath his back porch. 

Sam turned, squinting through the water in the direction of town. His hair was dripping down his back, t-shirt soaked against his skin. As Sam stepped down the first step, letting their fingers detangle, Gabe snorted. “Oh no you don’t. Couch has got your name all over it.”

“That’s okay, water never hurt no one,” Sam said. He was staring at his hand, eyes wide. Gabriel didn’t know what that meant.

“At least take my umbrella,” Gabriel said. “Or a shirt. Something.”

“An umbrella would be great,” Sam said, shoving his hand into his pocket as he shook his head to clear it.

Gabriel went inside, rooting through his closet to retrieve the umbrella he kept there. He got back outside in time to find Sam slowly fading in the distance, rain lessened to a mist across the world. He waved goodbye over his shoulder with the same hand Gabriel had been holding and Gabriel returned the gesture. Inside he peeled off his wet clothes and strung them over the shower edge to dry overnight. He crawled into bed before the sun was up and wasn’t sad for it, sleep overtaking him with his words and the music they were written for, sharp against the night.

Not an hour into his dream, there was a pounding at his front door. Gabriel heaved himself out of bed and snagged a shirt from the floor as he padded to the door. He opened it to a wide-eyed Jody, police uniform still on. It was untucked though, and the collar was uneven like she’d been yanking on it. “I can’t find Ben,” she said. “I thought maybe you’d know where he is.”

Gabriel’s heart sank, but he kept his head on straight and sure.“Okay, let me get some shoes and I’ll help you look. Who else have you got?”

“No one, I just checked his bedroom and the usual places. It’s never been in the middle of the night like this. I panicked and ran here.”

“Okay,” Gabe said, stuffing his feet into shoes he kept by the door. “You’re going to go wake up Sam. I’ll see if I can get Donna or Charlie. We’ll meet at the middle of the parks, and then split from there.” 

Jody turned to go, but Gabriel clamped his hands on her shoulders. “Also, change your clothes. And grab an umbrella, those clouds aren’t going far anytime soon.” She swallowed hard, looking down. “Listen. He’s going to be okay. We all are.”

He turned her in the direction of town and started to march her along with him. After a minute, she steeled her shoulders and nodded once. She hurried in the direction of her home and Gabriel jogged past Jody’s house to Donna’s tucked between Alfie’s and Metatron’s place in the neighborhood they called Straight Street since it was the straightest line from one end to another they’d ever seen. He knocked softly, trying not to disturb everyone, and Donna opened the door looking wide-awake. She was in a long t-shirt, white with black sleeves, and nothing covering her legs. “Gabriel, what’s wrong cupcake?”

“Ben’s missing,” Gabriel said. “Jody just woke me up. I thought you might be able to help look.”

“Sure thing, let me put a bra on,” she said. 

“Great, we’re meeting in the middle of the parks okay?” 

“See you there.”

Gabriel turned away from her doorstep, heading towards Charlie’s to see if she was still awake. She streamed overnight most days of the week, so his chances were high. 

“Gabriel?” A voice cut through the night. Alfie stood on his porch, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Oh hey, Alfie. Sorry, did I wake you up?”

“No, I was just getting ready for work. What’s going on?”

“Ben’s missing. Getting a crew to help look together.”

“I’m in. Meeting at the parks?” Alfie asked.

He said, “You really don’t have to. You’ve got work to do.”

“No, it’s okay. The store can wait. Only Sam’s there this early anyway and I’m assuming he’s helping look too.”

“Yeah, he is. Thanks, Alfie. See you in a bit.” Now he had Alfie and Donna, he wasn’t sure he needed to bother Charlie. Instead, he shot her a text to see if she was awake and headed towards the center of the parks.

He started making lists of places to check. The cubby outside the bookstore they saved for donations, the field of grass just past Donna’s place, the slides of the playgrounds. 

When he got there, he found Jody in a t-shirt and jeans, Claire at her side. Donna and Alfie were walking up together at his back and he frowned. “Where’s Sammy?”

Jody shrugged. “I couldn’t find him either.”

“Weird. He left my place a while ago. Wonder where he wandered off to,” Gabe muttered.

“Your place?” Claire said, eyebrows raised. Gabriel shrugged, averting her eyes. Claire hmmed and he tried to ignore that too. It was what it was. They all were what they were. Why should this be any different?

When Donna and Alfie arrived, they split up in all four directions, each of them listing a few places to check. Claire quirked an eyebrow and started to follow Gabriel much to Jody’s surprise, but he shrugged and held out an arm for her to link hers through. She snorted and he dropped his arm, but there was no anger in it. He knew Claire enough to know she wouldn’t, did it simply to get her to laugh. 

“So,” he said. “Got any ideas?” They were headed towards Gabe’s house, simply because he was the only one that lived in that direction and he would know the landscape by night better. 

Claire shrugged. “Rooftops, porch steps. He likes to be hidden away.”

“He’s grieving,” Gabriel said.

“Yeah. Yeah he is.” They made their way through the town, asleep, around them. Gabriel could feel the night swelling, almost ready to awaken with the sun. But, not quite yet. Not just then. The clouds parted, though, and the stars shone brighter than before the rainfall. Despite the reason for their night-covered stroll, Gabriel couldn’t help a smile.

As they walked, they stopped to peer beneath porch steps, to strain to see rooftops and balconies, looking into the treeline to see if there was a bed of grass he’d found to sleep on. They made it to Gabriel’s house to no avail and he looked at Claire. Should they keep going into the forest? Would Ben have passed everything he knew to find a place to rest?

She shrugged, her shoulders tense, fists balled at her side. He could tell it was getting to her now, the time passing so quickly with no result in sight. Her jaw clencehed and unclenched and Gabriel did the same thing he did for Jody. He used his hands to ground her. 

“Hey. Claire. Look at me.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll find him.”

“How do you know?” Claire asked, voice sharp. “Sometimes people don’t come back.”

“I know because I was a lot like him when I was grieving.”

“Yeah, but you left your home.”

Gabe shook his head. “No. Not this one. I may disappear, may take off every once in awhile, but I always come back. Know why? Because this is my home. You are part of Ben’s home.”

“No, I’m just mean to him.”

“No,” Gabe said, “No. That’s not all you are. I’ve seen the way you save the best piece of pie for him and the way you follow him with your eyes when he takes off. I’ve seen you watching over him. That’s how I know he’s going to be okay. He met you and he’s better for it.”

Claire rolled her eyes, but Gabriel knew she heard him, knew what he said settled into her heart to stay. She let her shoulders fall. “Okay. Let’s head back. I think I know where to check.”

“Lead the way, my lady.” This time, she held out her arm for him to link and he laughed as he slid his through. He followed in silence as she led him to the grocery store, around the back of the brick building. At the door to the stage, she tugged once, sharp, and the door creaked open.

She grinned at Gabriel and stepped into what was essentially backstage for their theatre, red curtains thick and heavy blocking out the seating area and the grocery store beyond. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came when he caught the notes floating through the air. It was the cello. It was the song. He couldn’t help but singing softly along to it, all the way to the point where he hadn’t heard the rest. 

Gabriel frowned, looking down at Claire as she grinned at him. He was going to open his mouth, going to say something, but she held her finger to her lips. Gabriel had no answers, no sign of Ben. What the hell was going on?

“Claire?” Ben’s voice rang out. The music cut off and Gabriel repressed his groan despite the relief that flooded his body. He wanted more. He needed the end. Ben emerged from a corner of backstage, sleep ruffled and rubbing his eyes.

“Ben, for fuck’s sake we’ve been worried sick. You’ve been here?”

Ben looked down at his feet. “Yeah, sorry. I smelled her perfume.”

Gabriel knelt in front of him, blocking his eyesight of Claire and her relieved anger. “It’s okay Ben. Just leave a note next time, okay? We were worried you’d wandered too far.”

Ben nodded. “Sorry Jody woke you up to find me.”

“It’s okay, Benny. No need to apologize. Let’s get you home, though, if you think you can go back? If not, we can have a sleepover at my house.”

Ben’s eyes went back to Claire where she sniffled softly, trying to hide it. “No, I think I’ll go home with Claire. Thanks, though. I’ll remember that for another time.”

“Sure thing. Anytime you need. Don’t worry about waking me one bit.”

Claire punched Ben on the shoulder and he buried his face in her stomach, wrapping his arms around her waist and squeezing. She met Gabriel’s eyes, sighing, before she hugged back just as hard. 

“See you guys later,” Gabriel said, leaving them alone. Clarie would get him home. On his way back his phone buzzed. It was Charlie.  _ Just got done streaming, what’s up? _

_ Nothing, Ben disappeared for a bit, but we found him. No worries. _

_ Glad to hear it. Next time knock on my door if you need help, though, you dufus.  _

Gabriel laughed.  _ Yeah, yeah. Nighty night GamerGirl. _

_ Nighty night Blindy _ . 

Gabriel cursed the day he met Sam Winchester and instantly took it back. It was strange, but life looked different with him in it. He wasn’t sure when that happened, didn’t know if it mattered. The sun breached the skyline and Gabriel walked back home slowly, wishing for the flowers to appear. It was the only thing he wanted in this old town of his. 


	7. Chapter 7

It was Kissing Day in town and Gabriel didn’t know until it was too late and he was stuck under the doorway of The Diner, eye-to-eye with Garth. Garth grinned.

“Bring it in my man,” he said, leaning in. Gabriel sighed and let Garth kiss him on the cheek, tossing a goodbye over his shoulder to the restaurant now that he was allowed to leave. Gabriel didn’t know when this one started, didn’t know why it even existed, but one day every summer a day was dubbed for kissing and anytime you met under a doorway you couldn’t leave without doing it. Something about spreading the love or keeping the town close with each other. Gabriel never went to town meetings, but he thought that was how the story went. Some kind of garbage logic to get everyone laughing when Gabriel inevitably forgot and got stuck under a doorway with Metatron.

On his way out after the meal, he met Bobby coming inside and groaned a groan for the ages. Just his luck. 

“Come here and get this over with boy,” Bobby said. Gabriel pressed a sloppy kiss to his cheek and left before the restaurant's laugher could catch at the heels of his boots. 

As he walked through town, looking for a place of refuge from the humidity, he found each doorway occupied or nearly so. Jody was coming from the bookstore, though, so he jumped at the safe bet and sidled up to her with a grin.

“Hey there pretty lady,” he greeted her.

“Seems to me you were waiting to get a little lip action from me were you?” Jody tossed back. She pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, hand on his jaw, and whispered a thank you in his ear. 

“For what?” he asked.

“Being you,” she said, and past his shoulder she went with a grin. He grinned too and moved into the bookstore feeling cleansed of the scratch of Bobby’s facial hair from earlier. It wasn’t that it made his skin crawl, it was more that he kind of liked it in a disturbing sort of way. Like kissing his father, but in a non-creepy way. 

Charlie greeted him from the register and he stopped at the counter to catch up. “Why didn’t you tell me it was K-Day?” he asked. “I would have waited until tomorrow to come into town if I had known.”

Charlie shrugged, feigning innocence. “I thought you knew.”

“Thought I knew my ass, you just like to see me suffer.”

“For all you’ve put me through you just might deserve a bit of irritation. Who you caught so far?”

“Garth,” Gabriel said, holding up a finger as Charlie started to giggle. She pressed her lips together and nodded for him to go on. “And Bobby.”

She couldn’t hold back after that, laughter echoing through the store. Gabriel rolled his eyes, waiting for her to calm down. “Damn, that sucks. You need a partner, like me and Gilda do. Only enter doorways with each other, only have to kiss each other. Simple.”

“Where am I going to find a partner? Hello,” he said, sweeping his hand through the empty store. “Single with no one to mingle with.”

Charlie’s eyes went to the doorway and she started to laugh again. Gabriel followed her eyes to find Sam Winchester cornered by Becky in the doorway to the laundromat across the street. His eyes were darting, searching for rescue. Gabriel repressed a giggle and hurried out the bookstore after looking both ways for any sign of life.

“Huh,” Charlie said before the door closed and he could feel her eyes on him as he jogged across the street.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sam was saying, avoiding Becky’s eyes. “What’s K-Day?”

“It’s Kissing Day,” Becky said back, pulling chapstick from her jeans pocket and applying way too much of it. 

Gabriel, thinking on his feet, thrust himself between the pair and, without a word, tugged Sam’s head down so he could press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. It was over in a second and he let Sam go despite the strange urge to tangle his fingers in the hair brushing his neck and never let go.

“There. You’re free Mr. Winchester. Avoid doorways on Kissing Day is what I always say.”

Becky sqeaked at his back and Gabriel whirled around. Sam was frozen still and Gabriel did what he had to do. He pressed a kiss to Becky’s cheek and grinned as she glared at him.

“There, everyone’s been kissed. Now, can we clear out of this doorway? I think I see Metatron headed this way.”

Becky harrumphed and headed off in the direction of her house. Gabriel turned to Sam. “So, no one told you either did they?”

Sam’s shoulders fell. “No. I was just trying to get some laundry done when she appeared out of nowhere.”

Gabriel laughed. “Rumor has it, if you kiss the one you like on Kissing Day, they like you back. All the kids think so.”

“Guess Becky never grew out of that phase, huh. She’s a sweet girl, don’t get me wrong, but not my type.”

“No? What’s your type then, Sammy?” Gabriel asked. He motioned for Sam to get out of the doorway. “Also, I was being serious about Metatron, let’s get out of here.”

“Uh I’m not sure what my type is, I just know it’s not her,” Sam said, avoiding Gabe’s eyes. His cheeks were flushed, though the humidity was especially bad that afternoon. The rain came and hadn’t left, so all the water was trapped. 

“Well, I’ve got a solution for us both, then,” Gabriel said. “We’ve got to be partners. Just for today. Either of us need to go into anywhere, run an errand, get into our house, we go together. A little peck on the cheek here and there and we’ll make it through without another kiss from Bobby.”

“Bobby?” Sam said, snickering.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Gabriel said, grimacing. “So, you in?”

Sam looked at Gabe with one of those looks that felt like he was being dissected and stitched back up without anything left that was dark inside. Only light and soft things. “Yeah, I’m in.”

“Great. So, where are we going today partner?” Gabriel asked.

“Uh, well I’ve got to get some things from the grocery store and then go back to the laundromat, and I promised Jody I’d make dinner tonight. Hey, why don’t you tag along? We’ve got more than enough room.”

“Sure,” Gabriel said without thinking. “There’s nothing I love more than a homecooked meal. What’re you making?”

Sam frowned. “Hadn’t really gotten that far. Thought I’d wander around the store and see what caught my eye.”

“Sounds good to me,” Gabriel said. They walked, shoulders brushing, towards the grocery store, Gabriel all the while pointing out the unlucky ones caught beneath doorframes. There was Claire, caught beneath a doorway with Bobby, both of them blushing. There was Metatron, babbling as Jo kissed his cheek and scurried down the street, his voice following her. There was Jody, grinning, as she pressed a kiss to Donna’s cheek in the doorway to the movie theatre. Their hands were linked. Gabriel raised his eyebrows at that. Sam shrugged and they continued on. It was what it was. That’s what Gabe always said.

In the doorway of the supermarket, Alfie was caught, blushing, as Ellen reached up on her toes to kiss his forehead. The trash in his hand rattled and Ellen moved into the store as he came out.

“Kissing Day, why’d I have to work on Kissing Day,” he was muttering as they approached. 

“Hey Aflie, how many you got so far?” This was the tradition. Person with the most got a medal to hang on their wall, though most of the town hung it with shame in the deepest corner of their closet. Metatron would come around just to make sure it was there throughout the year. Gabriel knew. He’d been caught at the door to the schoolhouse just as a meeting for the town’s business owners let out. It was not his best moment.

“Six,” he sighed. 

“Yikes. I’ve got four, but Sammy here’s my solution. Multiples don't count so we’re partnering up for the day.”

“Smart move,” Alfie said. “I wouldn’t be so high if the trash didn’t keep filling up so fast.”

“Why don’t you text one of us when it’s full and we’ll come grab it for you?” Sam offered. 

“You’d do that?” Aflie said, eyes growing wide. He looked about to cry. 

Sam smiled. “Sure, long as Gabriel’s okay with it.”

“More Sammy lip action? Count me in,” Gabriel teased. 

“Oh my god, if I hadn’t had to kiss Metatron, I’d kiss you both right now. Whatever you need is on the house today,” Alfie said, throwing his arms around them both.

Sam started to protest. “Oh no, we couldn’t. Feeding a whole family isn’t cheap.”

“You’re saving my life. Take whatever you need. Just run it by the register so I know for inventory.”

“If you’re sure,” Sam said, still looking uncertain. 

“Oh, I’m sure. Now, if you could clear the doorway, I’d greatly appreciate it.”

“Course we can, let’s go Sammy.” Gabriel led the way, stopping beneath the door while Sam crowded in close. He smelled like summer sun, like star-shine, like the storm lingering overhead. He brought his fingers up to Gabe’s face, brushing his thumb across Gabe’s cheekbone before he leaned in close and pressed his lips, warm, to where his finger had ignited a flame beneath his skin. Gabriel’s breath caught, his world going sideways for a moment. Sam lingered, close to Gabe’s skin, breath warm, and Gabriel didn’t know why but he wanted Sam to never be farther from him ever again. He could live like this forever. 

Sam, hand still cupping the side of Gabriel’s head, looked from side to side. “Clear,” he said, snagging Gabriel’s hand and moving into the store. Alfie sprinted in the gap they’d made and called out his thanks as Gabriel found his feet again.

“You alright?” Sam asked, frowning. 

“Of course. I’m good,” Gabriel said, resisting the urge to run his hand over where Sam’s lips had been. If there was anything on Earth that could keep that feeling forever, he’d buy millions in an instant. 

Inside, while they wandered through the aisles, Gabriel throwing every item of junk food he could find into the basket as Sam took them out again, the phone-tree began. 

_ Guys. GUYS. Did any of you see??? Gabriel kissed Sam on the cheek in the doorway of the laundromat.  _ Charlie typed, hitting send after adding a heart emoji.

Phones dinged across town. Donna in the supermarket texted back.  _ I know, you shoulda seen the kiss Sam gave Gabe in the doorway of the supermarket. Cutest thing to ever happen, hands down. _

_ I caught a picture _ , Bobby texted. He attached it and the town was full of sighs. In it, Sam and Gabe locked eyes, Sam’s thumb brushing delicately against Gabriel’s cheekbone. There was nothing in the world, but the two of them.  _ Now who owes me money. _

_ No way, kiss on the cheek doesn’t count. _

_ I thought it was when they’re finally going out. _

_ God bless Kissing Day. _

_ No, it’s when they announce they’re dating. _

_ What’s the difference? _

The chatter continued and Sam and Gabe did too, oblivious to the whispers they’d started. They went back to the laundromat and this time Sam kissed Gabe’s forehead. They left and Gabriel stretched up to kiss the tip of Sam’s nose. Sam turned homeward, tugging Gabriel along, laundry and groceries loaded onto his arms. 

In the doorway to Jody’s, and Sam’s place, Sam crowded Gabriel against the doorframe. He was grinning a grin that held a kind of silent magic, the kind Gabriel wanted to hold onto forever. It was like the world had gotten rid of everything bad in it and left only Sam. Gabriel didn’t mind what had been taken one bit.

“You know what they say about kissing in your doorway on Kissing Day,” Gabriel whispered.

“What’s that?” Sam asked, leaning closer.

“It means we’ll be tied together forever. Something about sacred ground.”

“Hmm,” Sam murmured, lips just barely against Gabe’s cheek. “Guess I don’t much mind that kind of fate.”

He didn’t step back, instead moving to the other side of Gabe’s face to press a kiss to his other cheek, lingering there too. “There are forevers worse than you.”

“I don’t know, with the way I talk? Might feel like forever,” Gabriel said, despite his thudding heart. Sam’s voice was soft, lips warm. 

“Never,” Sam said, still close. “I’d trade many forevers for one like this.”

At that, he moved into the apartment and disappeared through the stairway to the attic to deposit his laundry. Gabriel let his fingers trace both his cheeks for just one moment, just one second. That wasn’t a forever he could get. But, he could get a second in the silence to dream about it.

“Gabriel?” Claire’s voice startled him from the stairwell. He jumped, smashing the back of his head against the doorframe. He dropped his hands quickly, but the glint in Claire’s eye told him she knew everything there was to know about what he’d been doing, daydreaming in the doorway once she heard Sam’s footsteps inside. 

“Hey Claire. Let me get out of the doorway before I have to kiss another resident here. I’m up to two already.”

“How many you got total?” Claire asked. 

“Four. And that’s where it will stay,” Gabriel said. Claire typed away at the phone constantly vibrating in her pocket, thumbs flying. “You?”

“Just two,” she said, voice thin and unfocused.

“How’s spaghetti sound for tonight? Gabriel offered to make some pie too,” Sam called, coming down the attic stairs to put the groceries away.

Claire glanced up over her phone. “Sounds good to me. What kind of pie?”

“Either apple or peach, your choice,” Gabriel said, looking between Sam and Claire. Sam shrugged. 

“Peach,” Claire said. “If that’s cool with you guys.”

“Perfect. Peach it will be. Let’s get cooking Sammyboy,” Gabriel clapped his hands and moved through the doorway into the kitchen. Sam followed with groceries in hand and they unloaded their supplies together.

Sam’s phone on the counter dinged. As he looked at it, a dopey sort of grin spread across his face. Gabriel wanted to see who it was, wanted to see what it took to make Sam smile like that. But, his back was turned and Gabriel felt weird about prying like that anyway. There was a part of him that craved Sam to look at him like that, but he knew that never could be. Sam was light and softness and everything green. Gabriel couldn’t touch a thing like that without leaving scuff marks behind. 

He lowered his head to the recipe for the pie that he didn’t actually need and pretended to study the steps until Sam shut his phone off and looked up.

“Sorry. Now, what’s first?” Sam said, coming in close to see the recipe over Gabe’s shoulder.

So, Gabe dropped the ache in his chest for the smile Sam only gave someone else, and they spent the afternoon covering each other in flour and spaghetti sauce, the kitchen full of laughter. Occasionally, Sam’s phone would light up from his jeans pocket, but he didn’t pull it out again. He’d blush when he saw Gabriel looking, then shrug and turn back to cooking. It was enough to know he’d put Gabriel first, if only for this afternoon. It was enough. Gabriel kept telling himself it was enough.

They served dinner to the whole crew, Gabriel snagging a seat beside Sam at the table. Around them, Ben and Claire and Alex and Jody all sat, chattering and laughing, telling stories of their days and of kisses and of things that may or may not have been real. 

“I ever tell you about the time I accidentally kissed Bobby full on the mouth?” Gabriel asked. He told his story and the table erupted with laughter, Sam grinning at him from his side, sitting close enough for their knees to brush. The sun set slowly, sinking into the summer darkness so full of stars.

“Let’s go stargazing,” Gabriel said. “Race you losers to the rooftop.”

Jody hurtled the table in a stride and was out the window down the hall and up the fire escape ladder faster than they could blink. Her head appeared in the window after they all stared at each other in shock. “Who’s the loser now? Last one’s got dishes duty for a week, even you Gabriel.”

That sent them scrambling for the window, Sam picking up Ben and Claire by the waist while Alex made a break for it. Gabriel bear hugged her and the group of them stumbled towards the window a laughing mess. Alex broke free because Gabriel was laughing too hard at Sam’s fingers tickling his ribcage, making it through the window with ease and tossing a middle finger in their direction once she was clear. Ben managed to spider crawl down Sam’s back and get through, too, leaving only the three of them to fight.

Claire whispered something into Sam’s ear that Gabe couldn’t make out and, in his surprise, wiggled free, leaving the two of them alone in the hallway. 

“Who’s it going to be, stretch?” Gabriel asked, narrowing his eyes.

“It ain’t going to be you, Blindy.” Sam lunged for the window, Gabriel wrapping his arms around Sam’s waist to keep him from making it through. He knew he was no match for Sam, he had too much height and the distinct advantage of actually being in shape. As they wrestled towards the window, both of them getting a head through the opening, Sam stopped and turned to Gabriel. 

“Do windows count?”

“Huh?” Gabe asked trying to work out how he could fit his shoulders through the space his head could hardly fit in.

“For Kissing Day. Do windows count?” His eyes lingered on Gabe’s lips, though that couldn’t be right. He had someone else to make a dopy smile at. 

Gabe shrugged. “Don’t know. Never managed to get myself into a situation like this on Kissing Day before.”

Sam snorted. “You mean to tell me you, Mr. King of Storytelling hasn’t ever gotten caught in a window on Kissing Day?”

Gabriel grinned. “Can’t say that I have. ‘Til now, I suppose. One thing I got to know, though.”

“What’s that?”

“How’s this new story end?” Gabriel whispered. 

The summer air was sweet, wind gentle. It swirled around them as Sam leaned in. This time, a small part of Gabriel, was sure Sam was going to kiss him for real. Just as Gabriel shut his eyes, though, he felt Sam’s lips on the corner of his mouth, gentle and warm. 

Gabriel was at war, one side soaring, the other crashing down. He got pieces of Sam to hold, though, and that would have to be enough for this world. For this forever.

“This isn’t how it ends,” Sam whispered and without another word, shimmied his way through the window and onto the fire escape. He held out a hand to help Gabriel through and they made their way up to the roof, fingers linked. On the rooftop, Ben lay, head in Jody’s lap, looking up and up in wonder. Alex and Claire were stretched out on a blanket, their hands tangled together. Sam sat on the wall that bordered the rooftop and Gabriel sank onto the floor beneath him.

“Anyone ever tell you about the way stars learn to dance?” Gabe asked. No one said anything, but they tilted their ears to listen as they stared at the sky full of light and dark and everything in between.

He told them of the way stars are born in fire, how they learn to dance to match their iron heartbeat. How their youth is frantic, how their youth is fire. 

He told them of the way they learn to live with flame inside, and how they find their spot in the sky. They dance alone for a time, learning to how to be. 

He told them of how they find each other, blinking in the distance, and they learn to dance together. Learn to dance in light, learn to dance in love. 

He told them of how stars dance as they fall, as they grieve, as they explode. 

“Their hearts are stardust, what better life than to dance for us all to see?”

The rooftop was silent until Sam stood at Gabriel’s back, reaching for his hand. He looked up at Sam, stars filling everything behind him forever and ever. He smiled. “Come on.” 

“Where are we going?” Gabe asked, sliding his hand into Sam’s.

“To dance.” Sam tugged Gabriel against his chest and, on the rooftop full of star-music and stargazers alike, they moved slowly into each other. 

“Is this how it ends?” Gabriel whispered, resting his forehead on Sam’s shoulder.

“No,” Sam said, “I’m not sure I want this one to end.”

So they danced until the stars fell, danced until eternity had come and gone. Danced until the clouds that had retreated came back and blocked out everything but the misty moonlight. Danced until the first raindrop fell onto Sam’s forehead, glinting in the moon to look like a star had kissed his skin. 

They retreated inside. Sam kissed his cheek one last time in the doorway with a grin and Gabriel made his way home in the gentle rain, hardly noticing it at all. 


	8. Chapter 8

Gabriel finished knitting the blanket of night and starlight during the next knitting club while Donna and Jody and Claire grouped together on the other side of the circle to whisper behind their hands. Becky was absent, she’d caught a cold. So he was left to his own mutterings while the women across from him giggled. He tried to ignore it. 

He was all for gossip, that wasn’t the issue. It was that they were leaving him out of it, that made him want to scream. He’d giggle like the rest of ‘em, if only they’d let him. He could giggle like a goddamn god. Like the king of giggling town. Why wouldn’t they let him damnit?

“What’re you ladies snickering at over there?” Gabe said, eventually. He was almost done with the blanket, just a few more inches to cover that giant ass frame Sam had. Any normal person and it would be done already, but Sam was anything but normal. 

“Nothing,” Donna quipped.

At the same time, Claire narrowed her eyes on him. “You.”

“Oh well, long as I’m the target of the talk, carry on, by all means. Lord knows I like the attention,” Gabe said, grinning.

“Great. As long as we’ve got your permission,” Jody said, and they tucked back behind their palms to chatter some more.

Gabriel finished the blanket soon after and said his goodbyes. “Don’t talk about me too long after I’m gone. You’ll look desperate,” he said on his way out.

“It’s only fun when you’re here,” Claire called as the door shut. 

Gabriel made his way home. When he got there, he found a note tucked into the handle of his back door, fluttering in the wind the clouds brought that morning. They hadn’t cleared since last night. There wasn’t empty sky in sight.

_ I’m at the treehouse. _ It wasn’t signed. It didn’t need to be. Gabriel stashed the blanket inside the closet of his living room with his knitting needles and yarn, and he made his way through the damp trees to Sam. He hadn’t been out here in a few days and Gabriel could see Sam had been working hard at it without telling him. It was starting to take shape, walls coming together to make it look like a real treehouse instead of wood planks nailed into tree branches.

“Hey,” Gabriel said, making his way up the plank-ladder to the top.

“Hey,” Sam grinned. 

“How’s it going?”

“I think it’s finally starting to feel like a home,” Sam said, eyes unfocused and far away.

“That so?” Gabriel asked, grabbing a handful of nails to shove into his pocket and picking up the hammer from the toolbox in the corner. “Even with the splinters.”

“Even with the splinters,” Sam said. He snapped out of his dazed gaze and they got to work with building. They got the second wall up together before the storm hit them again, this time thick and pounding in an instant. They sprinted for the house and wound up on the porch leaving puddles with each step.

“Couch is yours, if you want it,” Gabriel said, expecting a no again. But Sam looked at him, really looked, and then shrugged his shoulders. 

“Sure. That would be great.”

Gabe kicked his shoes onto the porch, Sam following his lead, and they ducked into the living room with a sigh of relief. 

“Showers though there. I'll get you a change of clothes and leave them on the bed,” Gabriel said. “Can't guarantee a fit, though.”

“I don't mind. Thanks.” 

Gabriel, once he was sure Sam had shut the door and started the shower on the other side, peeled the wet clothes from his skin and changed into a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. He grabbed an old band shirt for Sam, one he wasn't sure was actually his, and a pair of sweats, too. 

He cleared out of the room to give Sam a little privacy and curled himself into the seat of the couch, watching the rain fall. 

His father used to say the rain was the only way the Earth knew how to get a new start. The only way to get a breath of fresh air. But, Gabriel thought if that were the case, his town would be lung-full and gasping. If only he knew there'd be flowers in the end. If only he knew there’d be flowers at all.

When Sam shut off the water, Gabriel pulled the blanket from the closet along with a pillow and left them in a pile on the couch. He retreated into the kitchen, looking for something to do with his hands. He wasn't sure why, but suddenly it felt like they were too free, he had nothing grounding him. Sam’s presence was something he could feel and it left everything slightly off kilter. He had thought this house was alive, but with Sam here he knew what he had been missing. This house did not breathe, wasn’t full of life the way Sam was. 

Sam came out from the bedroom, running a towel over his dripping hair, Gabe’s old sweatpants tight at his waist, and shirtless. The world went a little more skewed. 

He wasn't salivating, but it was a close thing. Miles and miles of muscle shifted and flexed as Sam troweled off his hair. He looked up, met Gabe’s eyes through the gap in wall above the kitchen island. He grinned and Gabe wasn't sure the world would ever be the same again.

“Your turn,” he said. “Hope I didn't use all the hot water.”

“Ever the gentleman,” Gabe said, moving through the kitchen and into the bedroom. He glanced back over his shoulder to glimpse Sam, hand outstretched, letting his fingers run over the blanket folded on the couch. He looked awestruck, on the verge of something exposed. Gabriel turned back around quickly, feeling like he’d walked in on something intimate. His father naked. But, less scarring and one hundred times more beautiful.

He showered quickly, not wanting Sam to feel alone in a house that wasn’t his. He threw on a t-shirt and a pair of sweats and went out to see if Sam was hungry. He stopped dead in the doorway. Sam, on the couch, lay curled up asleep, hands clutching the blanket into tight fists. Gabriel didn’t think he’d ever pry his hands away. Sam didn’t know it, but that had been the idea all along. That blanket would find it’s way to Jody’s doorstep by the next midnight, Gabriel knew it would. If it made Sam look that soft, he wouldn’t let him leave without it. Would never make him let it go. 

Gabriel backed, soft-footed, into his bedroom and eased the door mostly shut. And he started to research everything there was to know about how to get a kid to college, heart aching for Alfie and for the parents he had that weren’t doing this very thing. 

* * *

“Gabe?”

Gabriel jolted awake, face pressed into the keyboard on his laptop at his desk. His back ached something fierce and he could feel the indents where the letters were embedded into his skin start to burn. 

“Gabe?” Sam’s voice came again. His hand was soft on Gabriel’s shoulder and he couldn’t remember how long Sam had had it there. Had it been there the whole time? He blinked down at it. 

“Oh, sorry,” Sam said, pulling his hand away. “Didn’t know how else to wake you.”

“No, no it’s fine. I’m a slow waker. What’s up?” Gabe said, and he thought it was mostly coherent so that was a plus.

“Oh, you’ve got a visitor,” Sam said. “Rang the doorbell a few times so I figured I’d open the door if only to get them to go away.”

“Alfie,” Gabe said. 

Sam nodded. “Alfie.”

“You aren’t going to the town meeting?” Gabriel asked Sam. 

Sam shook his head. “Slept through the beginning.”

“It’ll just be about the bees. And the rain.”

Sam looked through the bedroom door to the living room. He lowered his voice. “Anyone talking about what’s going on with Alfie?”

Gabe shook his head. “They wouldn’t take too kindly to the notion.”

“No,” Sam said. “I don’t imagine they would. What are you going to do when time comes for him to leave?”

“Make a blockade and watch him disappear while trying not to cry,” Gabe said, standing up and pulling his shirt from the night off. He felt muggy from sleeping hunched over. Maybe if he changed his shirt, he’d feel better. “I’ll take the hit.”

Sam was silent a moment, still staring out the door as he sat on the edge of Gabe’s bed. “Need any help?”

“Town won’t like you much when they find out.”

Sam shrugged. “Need any help?”

“One question: you ever go to college?”

“Where do you think I walked from?” Sam asked. Gabriel frowned. He hadn’t even considered that a possibility.

“Which college then?” Gabriel asked, tugging on a new shirt from the depths of his closet.

“Stanford.”

“Why’d you leave?”

“My dad didn’t, how’d you put it, take too kindly to the idea. Showed up, made a scene. It wasn’t mine anymore, not after that.”

“Family business he wanted you to join instead?” Gabriel asked.

Sam nodded. “Something like that.”

“How far was the walk?” Gabriel asked, the distance unimaginable.

“Forever,” Sam said, standing. “So, you want my help or not?”

“Sure, Sammy. We could use a college boy.” 

They went out of Gabe’s bedroom together, Alfie waiting on the couch. 

“Alfie,” Gabriel greeted. “We’ve got some help.” Alfie beamed. He had help. 

Gabriel brought his laptop into the living room and they added a shitton of dorm stuff, new clothes, basic school stuff, everything they could think of to a wishlist on Gabe’s account. He’d order it in batches, but they had to be careful. Aaron the mail guy had a tendency to peek at big boxes and tell everyone in town what was inside. They couldn’t risk it getting back to Alfie’s parents before he broke the news to them. They’d take away every chance he had at a life he wanted.

When they were done, each with a list of shit to get done before next week tucked into their pocket, Sam stood. “Okay. Let’s go.”

“Go?” Gabriel asked.

“Yup. There’s still ten minutes left in the town meeting. Let’s go.”

“Still not following,” Gabriel said. 

“Trust me.”

“Fine,” Gabe said. He slid his feet into his boots by the door and followed Sam into town, Alfie jogging ahead with a wave so he could open the store before the meeting got out. Sam kept walking until he stood in the middle of the parks, silent and empty on all sides. He turned to Gabriel and grinned.

“Sam, what are we doing here?” Instead of answering, Sam glanced around one last time, and then lay in the dead center, one limb on all sides. There was already chalk in his hair, on his clothes, coating his fingers. But, when he looked up to catch Gabriel’s eye, he was grinning.

“No rules,” Sam said. “Quick, do something you’ve always wanted. No one’s watching.”

Gabriel thought, briefly, of leaning over and kissing Sam dead on the mouth. Was moments from giving in to the temptation. But, he thought if that happened, Sam might have to run again, and he didn’t want to be the reason Sam lost another home. Gabriel looked around for something else, something he’d always wanted to do. But, this was a town he’d been in for awhile. Most everything had been done. So, Gabe sat down beside Sam, laying with half his body in one park, half in the other, and he turned to Sam. “Tell me something no one knows.”

Sam turned his head, face inches from Gabriel. “I think I have found it finally. The place I’m meant to stay. Half of it is-” 

“What are you idiots doing? You’re going to stain your clothes!” Bobby called across the park, walking his way back to the auto shop. Gabriel sighed, sitting up. There were rules again.

“Since when do you care about clothes?” Gabe called back. “You’ve been wearing the same thing since birth.”

“No wonder we call you Blindy, you really can’t see a thing,” Bobby yelled before rounding the corner and disappearing. Sam sat up too and Gabe reached over to brush the chalk from his shoulder blades. Above them, the clouds lingered. A threat that would not leave. 

Sam slid his fingers through Gabe’s for just one moment, and then he stood. “See you later.”

“Bye, Sam.”

Gabe flopped back into the grass until the rain started like it threatened, and then he made his way home. 

* * *

He was soaked. Everything in his arms grew heavier by the minute. The rain was so thick he could hardly see through it, the water clinging to his eyelashes. But, he had to get the job done.

Mud caked the lower half of his legs, his steps slower and weighted more now. But still he ran through the downpour and up the steps. Beneath the overhang above the door, he set Sam’s blanket, now pooling water below it, and a note barely legible with water.  _ Something soft for you to hold onto. _

Gabriel heard a long time ago about the curse that came along with knitting something for someone. They’d be gone soon after, the story goes. The thought ate his stomach to acid, but that was only for couples right? Sam wouldn’t be going anywhere. They were nothing but what they were. Friends. The curse didn’t count for them.

They could not work on the treehouse for the next three days, all of them filled with rain. Gabriel paced around his house, trapped. 

When the rain finally stopped on Wednesday afternoon, Gabriel sprinted into town just to see another human again. He found the rest of the town in much the same state, all of them crowding in the entrance to the market. They had not wanted to venture into the storm just for a loaf of bread. But, after three days, just a loaf turned into the contents of their refrigerators and, with a store this close, none of them stockpiled anything. 

Now, they were all grabbing what they were short of since the rain had stopped for a moment. Gabriel found Jody and Sam together in the back. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Jody said. 

Sam smiled. “There you are.”

He moved swiftly. One moment, Gabriel was standing a few feet away, grinning. The next, he had a mouthful of Sam’s t-shirt and a body pressed close to his. Sam’s voice was gentle in his ear. “Thank you.”

And he knew what it was for, so he said nothing and sank into Sam’s hug. If this is what he could have, he’d take every moment of it. 

Jody cleared her throat and Gabriel blinked his eyes open to find the whole town suddenly fascinated with whatever was in front of them. Very. Fascinated. He rolled his eyes at the idiots he called family and Sam let his arms fall. He had a blush tinting his cheeks and Gabriel thought it was the cutest damn thing he’d ever seen. 

They went about their shopping together and ignored all the lingering stares. Sam’s phone was blowing up in his pocket, but he didn’t reach for it once. 

At checkout, Sam turned to Gabe. “Operation X?”

Gabriel nodded. They still had a lot of work to do while the sky was dry. It was close, now they’d been working a few weeks, but there was still so much to do. It needed to be perfect. A place to run away to.

On the street, Sam and Gabe started towards his place, groceries on their hips. 

“Ahem,” a voice came from the doorway. It was Jody. 

“Yeah?” Gabe asked.

“Where you think you’re going with my groceries?” she asked, smile soft on her lips. 

“Oh, my bad,” Sam said, holding the bags out to her. “You got it all?”

“Yeah, yeah. Go on.” She leaned in, whispered something in his ear that Gabriel couldn’t hear. And then Sam was at his side, taking a bag from Gabe’s arms and starting down the street.

They had all the walls up by midnight and they lay in the center of the floor, staring up at the sky. It wasn’t raining, but the clouds were shifting overhead.

“The sky’s gone,” Sam said.

“It’ll be back,” Gabriel said, turning his head towards Sam. In the light from their battery powered lanterns, his face was half darkness. He turned towards Gabe and it was all light again. He caught Gabe’s eye and a smile spread across his face. “It just needed a break.”

“Now, not even the stars can see us,” Sam whispered and Gabe wasn’t a gambling man, but he’d bet money right about now that Sam’s eyes were on his lips and he was inching ever so slightly closer. 

Gabriel took a breath, his heart starting to pound. “Remember earlier, when you asked me what I’d do that I always wanted to?”

“Yeah,” Sam whispered, close enough for his breath to ghost warmth against Gabe’s face. 

There were a few moments Gabriel knew would change his life. The day he packed his bags, for example. The day he walked up to the sign of the town he now called home. The day his father accepted the mayorship and the day after when he got blackout drunk. 

Sam, though, Sam was a moment that caught him by surprise. There was nothing to him on that first day that made Gabriel think they’d get to here. That he’d become something so grand and so soft. That Gabe would ever want to kiss anyone this damn much. He knew this would change things. He knew, he knew, he knew. 

He leaned in, and kissed Sam Winchester and above them the clouds swirled into a dance. It wasn’t electric, it wasn’t otherworldly. It was soft, Sam’s lips, the way his fingertips came to rub at the back of Gabe’s neck, his heartbeat against Gabe’s own. It was the kind of magic his father talked about, the kind he could encounter in his lifetime. Gabe hoped he could kiss this magic, magic man every day.

Sam pulled away, but his fingers still swirled circles through the hair on Gabe’s neck and he was smiling as he looked back upwards. They were quiet a moment and Gabe didn’t know what that meant. He didn’t really care. He wanted to kiss Sam, the beautiful, and so he did. There was nothing else to it. 

He took one moment to memorize the outline of Sam’s face, half-light and half-shadow once again. Then he turned back to the ceiling with the outline of Sam’s eyelashes ingrained into his mind, and he said, “Nothing has to change.”

Sam beside him smiled, Gabe could see it out of the corner of his eye. “No, it doesn’t have to.” 

Gabriel nodded. Sam didn’t want anything to change, so they wouldn’t. Gabe was glad for the change to kiss Sam, even once. Gabe sat up, scratched the back of his neck where Sam’s fingers had been, his skin still tingling. “We should probably get out of here.”

“Earlier, when we were in the parks, you remember what I told you?” Sam looked over, sharp.

“You finally found your home,” Gabriel said. He tucked his legs beneath him and trailed his eyes over the bareness of the walls. 

“And?”

“And what? You said something about half and then Bobby came by,” Gabriel tried to keep the bitter acid creeping up his throat from his voice, but some hurts couldn’t be helped. He’d be fine by morning, but right now it was weeping. The sky above them joined in and the rain started to mist down on them both. Gabriel made for the hole in the floor, going down, but Sam stopped him before his feet hit the first step. He was sat on the edge of where the wood gave way, turned towards Sam. 

“What I was going to say,” Sam said, “was that I found my home, yes. I found this town, and it’s great and all, but also? I found you.”

Sam, with a grip digging into Gabriel’s bicep to keep him from falling, kissed him softly one more time, lips and face wet from the rainfall. 

So things would change, even if they didn’t have to. That was the nature of them after all. No one had seen them, but the trees, and it was too heavy in rain to pass the news along. So, it was theirs. All of it, theirs alone. Sam slid his fingers into Gabriel’s as they walked back to Gabe’s house, and Gabe hardly noticed the rain. All he noticed was Sam. All he ever noticed anymore was Sam.

Sam slept on the couch again, this time beneath a different blanket Gabriel had knitted years ago, and Gabriel listened to the sounds of his breathing as he fell asleep, thinking about the way his lips felt and the way he wanted to feel them again.

Sam’s phone buzzed from the nightstand in Gabriel’s bedroom and something caught the corner of his eye. Sam’s background was a picture of them, grinning at each other in the doorway of the laundromat from the week before. Gabriel fell asleep with a smile. 

So, they went out to eat together and held hands all the while. They got ice cream cones and Sam laughed when Gabriel licked the top scoop too hard and it fell to the ground. They caught a movie in the back of the grocery store on Friday night and took the loveseat in the back, knowing full well the connotations to claiming that spot. 

In the middle of the movie, Gabe caught Sam staring at him through the flashing lights. He turned his head and Sam kissed him quick and soft, grinning when he pulled away. He leaned in close. “You look beautiful.”

Gabe rolled his eyes at the sap, but kissed him again and turned back to the movie, settled against Sam’s shoulder. 

Saturday, they spent the day finishing off the roof of the treehouse and getting the windows cut out, eating leftover pizza at lunch time. They were in the middle of power-sawing out the last window when Gabriel caught a voice from the direction of his house. It sounded like it was calling his name.

“Wait,” Gabriel said, tapping Sam’s shoulder. “Hang on a minute.”

Sam frowned, but turned off the tool and Jody’s voice drifted again, clearer. She was calling for them both, and it didn’t sound good. 

They scrambled down the stairs, both sprinting around the back of the house to meet Jody at the front where she stood at Gabriel’s front door.

“We came as fast as we could, what’s up?” Gabe said through gasps.

Jody looked between them, at the wood-powder covering them both. It looked like she almost asked what they were doing out in the woods, but then she shook her head. “It’s Ben. He’s missing again. We’ve checked everywhere.”

“Who’s we?” Gabriel asked. 

“Claire and me. He’s been gone a full hour now. I thought-”

“Okay, let’s go,” Sam grabbed Gabe’s hand and he started to pull him towards town. Jody jogged to keep up, eyeing their interlocked fingers without saying a word.

“You checked rooftops? The laundromat? The river behind Bobby’s place?” 

“Yes, yes, yes,” Jody said. 

“Which direction did he run?” Gabriel asked. Jody pointed past the parks, the road that led to the entrance to town. The road that hit the highway if you followed it long enough. Gabriel looked at Sam at the same time Sam was looking at him. 

“He couldn't have,” Sam muttered. Gabriel shrugged. He could have. 

“What set him off?”

“He had to go back. He had to get more clothes. He was wearing the few outfits someone had grabbed into tatters.”

“He could have,” Gabriel said, turning to Sam. They took off running again and stopped only when they finally found Ben. He was at the entrance sign into town, a group of people clustered around him, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the road. Ben’s voice rang out, strong and steady and the group around him was mesmerized. 

Sam turned to Gabe, frowning. Gabe shook his head and began to grin. Ben had found the Story Seekers and he had them captivated.


	9. Chapter 9

The town was crowded into the supermarket, the curtains taken down and the aisles pushed out of the way. Chairs had been brought in, of all different shapes and sizes. On stage, the Story Tellers sat along the edge, sitting with their backs to the growing crowd. Everyone was silent. Everyone except their leader. 

He was stretched out, lanky-limbed, all elbows and knees. His smile was easy, his eyes kind. His hair was long, one patch of gray near his temple that fell all the way to his shoulder with the rest of it. He went by whatever you wanted to call him, so Gabe called him Everything. He had stories from across the world, all of them hitchhiking and wandering to get stories out of people. The towns in turn fed them, housed them for a bit, and then sent them on their way richer than before. At least, that’s how it was according to them. 

Last time they were here, Gabriel had sat in the back. It was his first year. He had not had a story he wanted to share with anyone. Now, things were different. He wouldn’t mind telling this story he found himself in. He and Sam sat together near the back again, but it was for Sam’s sake. It was his first year. His story was a mystery to most and hazy, even, to Gabriel. He didn’t blame him for wanting to keep it quiet. 

Everything paced all through the crowd, smiling and greeting those he remembered. Those who spoke years ago. Asking questions of both the familiar and the new.

“Everyone, I’d like to give a thank you to Ben, here, who called us to this town. We would have driven by, had we not seen him standing at the edge of the highway. We stopped to hear his story and found all you wonderful people once again. Let’s get some applause for Ben, here.” The room thundered with clapping and Ben let a smile ghost his lips for a moment. Everything knelt. “You’re going through a rough time, I know. But, I know you’ve got a change coming.”

Everything moved on. He walked the aisles and clusters of people, and he stopped at Bobby, kneeling in front of his chair. “Would you be willing to tell your story?”

And Bobby sighed, but made his way to the center of the stage with his chair. Everyone listened as he cleared his throat. 

“My daddy knew how to yell. How to fight. Didn’t quite know  _ who _ to yell at or  _ when _ to fight. It ended up bein’ my ma more times than the guys down at the bar, but there are memories of both tucked up in here,” Bobby began, tapping his forehead. His eyes were unfocused now, he had time traveled to his childhood. “My mother’s hands, they always were trembling. I remember once having to drive her to the hospital because she sliced her hand open with a carrot peeler. I couldn’t have been older than nine or ten, couldn’t see overtop the steering wheel. Not all the way. My father didn’t come home that night, so we didn’t have to explain the bandages. 

“My pops taught me a lot of things. How to throw a baseball like a man. How to hit on women like a man. How to fix a car and shrug off bruises like a man. How to shoot a gun like a man. 

“But, he taught me all the things a man ought not to be. He swung his fists without his brain having any say in the matter. Hit the bottle so his brain wouldn’t have anything semi-intelligent to say if it ever caught up. Pushed the blame of everything wrong in the world onto my mother’s shoulders and then asked her why her back was bending. 

“I watched it all and I remembered that he taught me how to shoot a gun like a man. Figured, it was the same then, to shoot a gun at something pretending to  _ be  _ a man.” Bobby fell silent and the room was weeping. Not all of them knew about where he came from, not many of them at all. Hell, Gabriel hardly knew all the details. He took a breath, then another.

“It was the same, in most ways. The trigger smooth as ever. The shot just as ear-shattering. It was the same, mostly, and then it was so very different. Instead of the paper man with a hole clean through, it was my old man with a mess on the floor the color of fruit punch. 

“My mother never forgave me, but I forgave myself. It was what had to be done. Neither of us could take another swing. Not long after, I packed my bags and chose to find a home without bruises in the foundation. Without dents in the walls from all the times we hit them with our bodies. I jumped from house to house, city to city, like most of you all. Friend of a friend pointed me in this direction.

“I was much older than most of you when I began. Much, much younger than I am now. But, I found a home. One without bloodstains in the carpet. And, I stayed. Figured, what better place than here.”

The room filled with thunder again, enormous and overwhelming, all of them clapping as Bobby took his seat once more. He told the whole story with his hands shoved into his jean pocket and, when he pulled them out, they were shaking.

“Thank you, Bobby, for sharing,” Everything said. And he began his dance again. He stopped on Alfie and Alfie stood. Gabriel watching, wondering what on Earth he was going to say. Sam was tense at his side too, praying nothing slipped out that would get him into trouble.

Alfie stood, fidgeting. “Well, I guess I don’t have much of a story.” 

Everything from the stage spoke up. “What do you want it to be, then?”

Alfie shrugged. “I hope it’s something bigger than myself. Something with a heartbeat.”

“Aiming for the sky?” Everything asked. Alfie shook his head, staring at the ground. 

“No,” he said, “but somewhere a little closer than that perhaps.”

They clapped for him too, but the murmurs began and Gabriel couldn’t tell if Alfie had said too much. Did they know he meant within the month? Did they know he meant to go?

Everything was circling again, drawing near, and he stopped in front of Sam and Gabe both. 

“Both of you,” he said. “I want to hear both of your stories and how you came together.” 

Gabriel had forgotten their hands were linked, but he figured the damage was done. No bother in trying to hide it now. 

“I’ll go second, if you don’t mind,” Sam said, standing. “But I’ve got to ask you something.” He leaned in to whisper in Everything’s ear and Everything nodded as he spoke. 

“However you’d like,” Everything said and Sam started for the stage. But, instead of stopping in the center, he kept walking, jumping down behind to rummage through the storage they kept there. Everyone was whispering again, and Gabriel wasn’t sure whether to be happy it wasn’t about Alfie, or to punch them all for whispering about his Sam. 

“Gabriel?” Everything said. “You’re first, while Sam here gets his story ready.”

Gabriel shrugged, made his way to stage. In the center, he paused, digging through the memories he had to find the ones he wanted to share. He fixed on one. He started to speak.

“I’m sure you all know about my dislike for the Summer Bees. The ones that bring the flowers. The ones that are promised to come any day now, really.” People in the crowd nodded, chuckling. They knew he hated them alright. “Right, so I’ve made that quite apparent. But, I’ve never told you why. 

“My father was the mayor of my childhood town. He was also a drunkard and one that liked to yell. It was after my mother died. He didn’t know how to grieve. He never swung, we got lucky there. There were what felt like one hundred of us in that little house, all of us scattering when we heard his glass clinking.

“But, every once in awhile, on soft days that melted into gentle nights, my father would sit on his rocking chair. I’d sit on the porch steps and lay back to take in the stars, to wait. Sometimes, it would be before I got all the way settled in when he started to speak. Sometimes it would be hours and the sun would be waking up again. But, he always started to tell me stories. The kind you all are searching for.

“Once, he told me of the bees. It was one of the Summers when he did, and little old me with bright eyes and expectations bigger than my ego, latched onto the idea of them. They’d be the ones to save my family. They’d be the ones to make my father happy again. To make my home feel warm again, though I’m not sure it ever really did,” Gabe scratched at the back of his neck. He could not find a time when it was, that old house of his. 

“So, I planted seed after seed, spent midnight hours digging through the soil in our front yard. I tore the place to shreds, tore every fingernail from my hands, just to plant more seeds. More seeds meant more chances. You all know that. 

“The bees came a few weeks later and I raced out onto my lawn, standing in the center of the maze of seeds I’d planted for the fuckers. Hours passed. The bees passed. Not one of them touched me. Ungrateful bitches,” Gabriel said, laughing a bitter laugh. “I fell asleep, hoping one had just fallen behind. My father carried me inside, made me scrub the grass stains from my pajamas in the sink the next day. 

“My house was never warm. The bees had let me down,” Gabriel said. And he let the silence fall. He shrugged, looking around. “So,” he said, “that’s why I hate the fuckers. I was an idiot and thought they’d fix everything. I’m still an idiot, but I know better now.”

They all clapped for him but he hardly noticed it as he sat down. He was stuck in his head again and he didn’t know how to get out. Not now they all knew. What would they think of him now?

Gabriel sat back down and kept his head bowed, feeling the weight of all those eyes. Hearing his father’s voice again. 

Around the room there was silence, and then one noise brought Gabe haltingly back to the present. Sharp and clear, the first notes of a tragedy, a haunting Gabriel had discovered long ago.

He looked up slowly, another note rang out. Lighter, brighter. 

On stage was a cello, Sam Winchester’s long arms wrapped around it from where he sat upon his plastic chair. He was bent over, eyes closed as his body sank into the music. He let the breath of a silence fall, and then began to play once more. 

Claire across the room met Gabe’s eyes pointedly, but he was too focused on Sam to think anything of it. Sam was music, Sam was soft. This was his story for them all to hear. Listening all of them were. 

Sam blinked his eyes open, finding Gabriel and nodding to him. He knew Gabriel had heard his song, had had words to it floating around. He seemed to want him to sing, but Gabriel felt like that would be breaking the rules. This was not his story to tell. 

Sam kept playing, every once in awhile finding Gabe amongst the faces. Gabriel mouthed along to the words and Sam nodded him up to the stage once again.

Everything came over. He sank into Sam’s empty seat. 

“He wants you to help him,” he whispered.

“It's not my story to tell.”

“Sometimes we need a little help getting the whole thing down. You're a part of his story. Help him finish it.”

So, Gabe stood. In a trance, he made his way up to the stage again and carried a chair to the center beside Sam. Sam grinned as Gabriel began to sing. Of boys who lost their voice to the ocean, of men who wandered in the dirt. Of Sam and Sam and Sam. 

Always, always, Sam. 

The music swelled in a way it hasn't before, turning light when before it had been dark. Gabriel didn't know what that meant, but he tried to follow along. He had closed his eyes to the crowd and when the song finished, he opened them to find a room stunned into silence. The afternoon light cast the stained glass onto them, painting them every color of the universe skewed. It caught on a few tears falling. He wondered what that was for. 

Sam beside him leaned his cello against his shoulder and turned to him, smiling softly. He looked raw, cheeks pink, eyes wavering. 

“You did a good thing,” Gabriel said, patting Sam’s jean-clad knee. 

“Thank you for helping me,” Sam said. “I wouldn't have done it if it weren't for you.” 

And he wasn't bitter and he wasn't sad. He was exposed, but he was comfortable in that. They sat on the stage in the silence that followed until one set of hands began to clap. Then another. Then the town was applauding, asking for an encore. Sam looked at Gabe and shrugged. 

Gabe had no words ready, but he shrugged too and Sam began to play something softer than before. Something that felt a lot like the treehouse and laying in the middle of the park and all of the things that made them, them. So he sang about finding things, discovering people underneath people. Sang about the way he couldn't feel the Earth turning, nor feel the birth and death of stars. How he couldn’t feel it when he fell in love, not until it was too late to go back. 

That was the way of things bigger than himself. He had to be told they existed before he realized they were true. The Earth was rotating, hurtling through space. The stars exploded every day. He was in love with Sam Winchester.

He sang and watched Sam’s body sink into the song too, and the room fell away. It was just music. Just them. Nothing else existed. 

Then the song was drawing to an end and the notes were getting softer, Sam letting them echo throughout the room, letting a small breath of silence fall before letting another note out. 

The song ended. Gabriel didn’t look at Sam or the crowd. He stared at the door in the back of the room and waited for the clapping to stop. He could see Sam glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t turn. Sam would see. Sam wouldn’t mirror what he saw. Sam would run.

That was how it went. Everyone Gabriel loved left, in one way or another. So, he swallowed his heart and beamed at the crowd, taking Sam’s hand in his own to bow just once before picking up his chair and walking downstage. Everything started to talk at the front of the room after a moment too long of silence, and Gabriel kept walking, pushing through the door of the supermarket and pausing in the middle of the street. He started towards home, knowing what he needed to do.

He went to the trees. He told them his story. “I think I love him,” he whispered, leaning his forehead against the truck of the tree closest to his home. “If I never tell him, you’ve got the job. But, not yet. Not for awhile.”

The tree above him shook as with wind, but the night was still around them. A leaf floated down and settled on his shoulder. They had an agreement. 

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“Gabriel?” Sam’s voice came from the side of the house. Gabriel turned around, brushing the pieces of bark from his forehead. The leaf he tucked into his pocket, but he played it off, cupping it in his palm so Sam wouldn’t be able to tell.

“Hey,” he greeted Sam. 

“Everything alright?” Sam asked, eyeing Gabriel. 

Gabriel beamed. “Course I’m alright. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Sam dropped his eyes to the ground, something shrunken in his shoulders. He shrugged. “Don’t know, but you booked it out of there kind of fast. Figured I’d ask at least.”

“Oh yeah, I’m not really one for crowds. Not when I’ve shared too much.”

“Sorry,” Sam started. “I didn’t mean to drag you into it. You’re just part of this story is all.”

Gabriel surged forward, kissing Sam hard. He could feel Sam soften against him, feel the insecurity he set forth fall away. He was glad for it. Sam didn’t deserve to suffer for the way Gabriel didn’t know how to love. Gabriel knew he would, though. So, he kissed him hard and didn’t pull away until it felt like the world disappeared. 

“Don’t,” Gabriel said. “Don’t apologize.”

It wasn’t Sam that sent him spiraling. Or, it was. But, not really. It was Gabriel’s inability to function that sent him spiraling. Sam was and would only ever be a miracle in the shape of a man.

Sam rested his forehead against Gabriel’s. “You sure you’re okay?”

Gabriel grinned, looking into miles and miles of sparkling green flecked with gold. “Yeah, Sam. Yeah.”

“Good,” Sam grinned. “Good.”

They went to work on the treehouse and finished the structure of the building. All they needed now was to get furniture in and decorate the shit out of the place. They wanted it to be perfect when Ben finally got it. Wanted it to be soft and safe and comfortable for him. Somewhere to spend some time away from everything else. 

It was well into the night by the time they finished the roof, so they retreated into Gabriel’s house. It wasn’t raining, not that night, but still the clouds stayed. 

“Wonder when the clouds will clear,” Sam said, sitting at the kitchen counter, sipping at a glass of water. Gabriel stood at the stove, frying up some french toast.

“Not sure,” Gabriel said. “It’s strange. We don’t usually get monsoons this long.”

“Hmm,” Sam said. 

They fell into silence and Gabriel jumped on the chance, sliding two slices of toast onto a plate and setting it in front of Sam. “So, you’re the mysterious cellist I keep hearing at the market?”

Sam quirked an eyebrow. “Guess so. Didn’t know anyone heard until I heard you singing along to my song the other day.”

“Your song got a name?”

Sam shrugged. “I was thinking Wandering Star, but now I’m not so sure.”

“No? Why not?”

“I think maybe that’s not how it ends anymore.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel said, “I think maybe you’re right.”

Gabriel made himself a slice of toast and sat down next to Sam to eat, bringing a bowl of powdered sugar to put between them both. After a minute, Sam pushed it towards Gabriel with laughter crinkling his eyes. Gabriel had kept going back for more. Now, he dunked the bread right in and bit into the sugary sweetness to the sound of Sam’s rumbling laughter. 

Sam kissed his cheek then and Gabriel didn’t know who to contact to get the world to stay exactly like this for eternity. 

Sam stood at the sink, doing the dishes like he’d lived there forever, and Gabe could feel it now. The Earth turning. The stars exploding. Gabriel was in love with Sam. It was real now, more real than it had been before. After the song there had been adrenaline, emotions running high. But, now it was just a night. Just doing dishes. Still he could feel it seeping from his heart.

Gabriel took Sam’s hand and the rain began to fall. Gabriel kissed Sam, kissed him to the rumble of thunder. 

Lightning flashed, Gabriel backed Sam onto the bed as Sam’s hands started to roam. 

Lightning flashed, Sam tugged Gabriel’s shirt off and started to kiss down his chest.

Lightning flashed, their clothes were gone and the thunder drowned out the soft gasps coming from Sam as Gabriel licked a long stripe along the underside of his dick.

Lightning flashed and the thunder couldn’t muffle Gabriel’s moan as Sam worked two fingers into his ass, brushing his prostate, Sam mouthing at the pulse point in his neck all the while.

Lightening flashed and flashed and in the cushion of rainstorm and thunder, Sam and Gabe tangled their fingers together, tangled their bodies, tangled everything there was to tangle, and there was no getting them untangled. Not anymore. 

They became the sky, infinite. They became the thunder, booming. They became the lighting, sharp, bright, electric. They became together everything they couldn’t be apart and it was with an ease neither of them knew was possible. Diving into a still pool. Fingers sliding into hand that fits just right. There was nothing to it.

Outside, the thunder drowned out the trees as they whispered what they knew of love. It was alright. Gabriel had time to tell him yet. The trees could hold it for as long as Gabriel needed. They would hold the words forever.

Morning brought an empty bed and Gabriel couldn’t say he was surprised. But, Sam came back with coffee and a slice of pie, the last according to him, and Gabriel was surprised this time. When the ones in the past left, they didn’t come back. What did that mean for Sam?

Sam kissed him with coffee on his breath and climbed back into bed, kicking his shoes off as he did. Gabriel grinned and grinned.

And then the pounding at the door sent the cocoon they were living inside shattering. Gabriel sprang out of bed, pulling on a pair of boxers from the floor and hobbling to the door as he tugged them on. It was Alfie, standing on his doorstep with a duffel bag in hand. 

“Alf?” Gabriel said, searching for the pieces he was missing.

“They uh, they found my brochures. I can’t stay there anymore, not if I’m planning on leaving.”

Gabriel nodded, heart breaking for the kid. He swung the door open, taking the duffel bag from his arm, and let him in.


	10. Chapter 10

Gabriel went into town, straight to the grocery store. He had another mouth to feed, two really if Sam stuck around like he had been hanging around recently. He needed to stock up on, well, everything.

The news hadn’t hit town yet, so Gabriel flew under the radar. He knew it would, though, and then there’d be hell to navigate. Not from everyone, not forever. But, hell there’d be. 

So, he loaded two grocery baskets with everything he could get his hands on and checked out with a new cashier at the register. She raised an eyebrow but scanned his groceries in gum-chewing silence. Gabriel didn’t mind it much, though he was used to it being Alfie standing there. He wondered if Alfie would go back, wondered what he’d do at all. Whatever it was, Gabriel would be there to help him. He promised that.

He walked home balancing more bags than he could handle and got back to find Alfie pacing through his living room, Sam sitting on the sofa following his movement. 

“Heya, Alf, why don’t you go take a shower while I get us some brunch going? Sam, care to help me put some groceries away?” 

“Sure,” Sam said. He jumped up, leading Alfie into the bathroom to show him how to turn on the shower and giving him a towel and a change of clothes. He came back out quickly and started helping Gabriel unload the rest of the bags of food. Whenever he didn’t know where something went, he just held it up and let Gabriel point him towards the right cabinet.

When the last bag was done, Gabriel leaned against the counter and let his head rest against the cool granite. 

“Hey,” Sam said, coming up behind him. He ran a hand down Gabriel’s spine, soft and stabling.

“What are we going to do?” Gabriel asked. 

Sam kept rubbing Gabriel’s back as he said, “Whatever we have to do to put the pieces back together.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel said, straightening back up. “Yeah.”

Sam looked at him with a waver in his eye, like he wasn’t sure Gabriel would ever stand up straight again. So, he stood. And he nodded. And he went to the newly stocked fridge to start to compile what they’d eat for brunch. 

They’d eat. Then they’d tackle the rest. 

He and Sam were in the middle of baking monkey bread when Alfie came padding out of the bedroom, drowning in Gabriel’s old clothes. He sat at the table across from them where they waited for the bread to bake, and he said nothing, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Coffee? Water? Tea?” Gabriel asked.

“Coffee, please,” Alfie said, voice small. 

Gabriel stood, heavy hand on Sam’s shoulder to stop him from getting up to help too. He got a mug from the cabinet and poured a cup from the pot they’d brewed while Alfie showered. “Cream? Sugar?”

“One sugar,” Alfie said. Gabriel set the mug in front of the boy and sank into his seat again. It was silent. It was awkward as hell. Gabriel knew only one way to handle a situation like this.

“I ever tell you about the time I convinced an entire town I was dead and then showed up for my funeral?” Gabriel blurted.

Alfie looked up from his cup, Sam snorting at Gabriel’s side. “No,” Sam said. “That’s not a story I’d forget.”

“Right, okay, so I wind up in this town about the same size as ours. Seemed normal enough. I get a room above the auto-guy’s place for super cheap. He was practically paying me. I go about my business and all, teenage me just strolling through a new town, taking in the sights. 

It was a nice town, a bit dry, though. Not a whole lot of green. But, nice enough. I go into the town center to get the information, find out how the town became a town, and this lady comes up to me. High ponytail, light pink lipstick, she was all shades of chipper to greet me. Asks me my name, where I’m from, and it’s all going great until I tell her where I’m staying. Her face had gone white, the smile stiff. She looked like a corpse walking.

“‘What’s wrong?’ I asked her. She glanced around, leaning in. One day in and I’m already getting town secrets. She told me about the guy I rented from. How he always has a stream of women no one recognized, how they never see the girls leaving. How they’re sure they heard screaming the other day and he always had scratches up and down his arms.”

He looked up to find Alfie listening hard, eyes awake now and bright. He kept going. “So, she makes me promise to find another place and I half-heartedly agree. She tells me not to draw any suspicion, to stay for the night but then she’d have a room for me arranged somewhere else. Whatever. I went along with it, but I didn’t get that vibe from the guy anyway. She told me about the town meeting in the morning and how it was mandatory for the first week in town. Great. I go back to wandering the day away. The auto-guy meets me at the door, has towels and the like, nice as can be. 

“We get to talking. I hint at the town rumors, hear he’s got some honnies in the town over that prefer to sneak out before the town wakes up. How his jack is, well, jacked, and scratches him when he cranks it. He’s a bit of a theatrical guy, but harmless, really. So, we get to scheming. 

“I move down to his living room and don’t leave for three days. I miss the town meeting. I hear that lady pounding at the door upstairs. Balthazar, the auto-guy, comes back with news. They’re holding my funeral the next day at the church down the street with a backdoor that never locked. 

“I dress in all black. Balthazar goes to the church early and I listen at the door. I wait for them to all sit. For the music to start to play. For the lady to introduce to the town I had only met in passing who I was and why they all were there. And then I emerged from the light of the day, a shadow against the sun. I made my way to the podium, glanced behind me at the closed casket. ‘Weird, thought it would look cooler, seeing my own casket,’ I had said. The lady went pale, backed away from me with her hands out, pink claw nails extended.

“‘Hello all,’ I said, taking my place at the podium. ‘So, guess I’m dead. Never thought I’d be here today. I’d just like to thank you for inviting me, allowing me into your town, even if my stay was short lived. Get it? Short  _ lived. _ Special shout-out to the homie that landed me in this opportunity, Balthy, you’re the realest. Thanks for sending me to the grave, man, or we’d never be here today.’ By that time, the group had started to catch on. There was laughter scattered through the pews. Balthazar stood, bowing and clapping began. All except from the town center lady who began to stumble out of the door. 

“‘Yo, pianist, hit the jams yeah? Let’s have a party up in here. Make my funeral fun,’ I had said. So, that’s how I convinced a town, well a lady, I had been murdered by the local auto-guy and made a party out of my funeral,” Gabriel finished. It was silent, and then Aflie began to laugh. There were tears running from his eyes, hands clutched over his stomach. Sam joined in, but it was nothing compared to the body-wracking laughter that fell over Alfie. 

Gabriel laughed too, until Alfie caught his breath and wiped his eyes. He sat back, still grinning. “Thanks,” he said. “That was great. Even if it was made up.”

“I’ll never tell,” Gabriel said. “But, now you have to tell me a little something.”

Alfie’s smile fell. He nodded. “Yeah, I figured. Where should I start?”

“You don’t have to tell us anything if you don’t want to. Just need to know what you want to do from here.”

“Well, I’d like to still go to school in August. I think I can apply for early housing for a bit extra money. I just need to figure out a place to stay.”

“Alfie,” Gabriel said. “You can stay here as long as you need. Long as you don’t mind my crazy stories and Sammy here’s unending supply of kindness. I mean seriously, where do you get it from.”

Sam, mid pour in refilling all of their cups, rolled his eyes. “Same place you get all those stories, Blindy.”

Alfie snickered behind his hand and the timer dinged on the monkey bread baking. They ate with smiles. They’d get the future sorted. 

Alfie fell asleep in the middle of a movie Gabriel had half-heartedly put on, and he went to get a blanket from the closet. Gabriel draped it over Alfie and nudged Sam where he dozed on the couch.

“Babe, hey,” Gabriel whispered. “Come on.” 

Sam blinked awake. When his eyes found Gabriel, a smile spread across his face, bringing out the dimples in his cheeks. “Let’s go to bed,” Gabriel said as Sam reached up to tangle their fingers together. 

They went to bed.

In the morning, Gabriel slid out of bed, Sam still snoring softly beside him. He walked into town, the morning clear for the first time in forever. He knew it wouldn’t last long. Nothing clear ever did. 

At the post office, it all went to shit. He walked up to Hannah behind the counter. “Hey Han, what you got for me today?”

She didn’t look up. He frowned, looking around. There wasn’t anyone else, no one to verify he was alive and walking. He pinched the outside of his elbow before remembering he couldn’t feel it anyway. He tried again. “Hello? Hannah? Anyone home?”

She turned her gaze on him, but it was narrowed and blank. She stared at him for a moment and then she turned back to the computer she was typing at. 

“Well okay then,” Gabriel said and he went behind the counter to get the key to his mailbox. There were packages a plenty when he opened the door and he tossed the key back towards Hannah. “Thanks anyway.”

As he loaded his arms up, too high to see through unless he grew a longer neck, he heard her mutter something under her breath. “Traitor,” she said.

Traitor. Hmm. The word felt weird rattling around in his head. It felt like a badge of honor. At least, the first time he heard it. But then there was Metatron in the doorway of the diner as he passed and the girl that he let toilet paper his house spitting at him and the one on the bike that he didn’t get a good look at that knocked the boxes out of his hands to the ground. There were puddles still there in the gutter and, of course, they landed right in them, not a box spared.

Gabriel gathered up the soggy cardboard boxes as best he could and started home again, the clouds moving in in a different way. Clear sky, storm inside the people beneath it. 

This was his town, but something had changed. He had become something outside to them. All because he had the nerve to encourage Alfie to leave. To let Alfie make his own choices. He steeled his shoulders, shrugging off the comments with a wink in their direction. This was his town, they’d be his again soon. He only had to wait out the storm.

On the porch to his house, he pasted on a smile. Sam looked at him funny, a strange look at the water-logged boxes, but Alfie sat at the kitchen table so he shrugged. “I’m clumsy, what can I say?”

Alfie grinned, but Sam’s eyes were still narrowed. Gabriel started to unpack the stuff for the treehouse, a hammock to hang between two branches behind the thing, cushions and stuff to decorate. 

“Sam, look, it’s the stuff for Operation X. Want to go today?” Gabriel said. Sam shrugged off that suspicious look and started to dig through the rest of the boxes, pulling out the pieces to a bookshelf and a videogame console, the stuff piled up.

“Whoa, what’s all this for?” Alfie asked, starting to sift through the boxes too.

“It’s for Ben. We’re making him a safe house. Somewhere to run,” Gabriel said.

“Cool,” Alfie said. “Can I help?”

“Sure,” Sam said, “Sure you can.”

“We could use an extra set of arms,” Gabriel said. “But first, I need a shower and you, Alf, need to eat. Something more than coffee.”

Alfie sighed, but went to the refrigerator to poke around for real food while Gabriel made his way into the bedroom. He could feel Sam at his heels, following close like he’d lose him if he didn’t. Gabriel pretended not to see Sam close the door behind himself while Gabe rummaged through the dresser for clean clothes. 

“Gabe,” Sam said, arms folded near the door. Gabe ignored him. Maybe he’d forget the whole thing. “Gabe.”

“What’s up Sammy? Fancy some shower sharing?” Gabriel turned on his heel.

Sam frowned, coming closer until he was towering over Gabriel. “Gabriel. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, but I can find a problem you can help me fix.” Sam’s hands planted on his shoulders and he bent close to his face. 

“Gabriel, please. What happened? What was it?”

But, Gabe couldn’t do it. He couldn’t tell Sam the town he’d found had turned on them all. Couldn’t tear that salvation away before he had to. He wasn’t sure Sam would stay, wasn’t sure Sam would ever look back after something like that. 

So he kissed Sam’s frown and turned to go into the bathroom, smiling all the way. It wasn’t until the door was shut behind him and Sam’s knocking had been drowned out by the shower that he finally let his shoulders fall. He’d hold the world for them both outside, but for now he’d set it down. Just for a second. 

He showered and didn't feel a thing but rain in his heart. Dreary, dreary rain.

* * *

They spent the day setting up what they had of the tree house furniture, Alfie and Gabriel building on the forest floor while Sam hauled it up to find a place inside the wood. After the sun went down, Alfie got quiet.

“Hey,” Gabriel said. “You okay?”

Alfie had stopped working on the mini bookshelf he’d begun, instead turning to stare through the trees. He shrugged. “It’s another night away from home.”

Gabriel dropped the hammer in his hands, moved to kneel beside Alfie in the dirt. He reached out, rubbed his back gently with his hand. “I think, maybe, it’s not so much home anymore. Not if they won’t let you be you.”

Alfie sighed, still staring in the distance towards town, towards his old home. “Maybe,” he said.

Gabe understood. He’d run away from a place he thought was home, a place that  _ was _ home for eighteen years. It took awhile to see just how much that wasn’t home. “Why don’t you head back? Get some sleep?”

He’d give Alfie a chance to poke around the place that would be home for the month before he went to school. He could use some breathing room in there while he felt the place out.

“Yeah,” Alfie said, standing up. “I think I will.”

“Need me to come with?” Sam called down. “We can shut down shop until tomorrow and head in together.”

Gabriel shot Sam a look, as Alfie shook him off. “No, I’ll be okay. You guys keep working.”

Aflie disappeared between the trees and Sam climbed down to stand beside Gabriel. “What was that look for?”

Gabe turned, finding Sam’s eyes in the warm darkness. “When I left my home, I thought that’s what it was. It took a long time to get used to the idea that home wasn’t just where you grow up. Wasn’t just the place you slept in. Took me a long time, many different places to live in, to get that. To know what it was that made a home a home. He needs a chance to feel this one out, see if it fits better.”

“Alone,” Sam said.

Gabriel nodded. “Alone.”

“And once you’ve found home? Then do you have to be alone?”

“No,” Gabriel said, sliding his hand into Sam’s. “No, you don’t.”

Sam pulled Gabriel against his chest, pressing a kiss to his forehead. Above the stars glinted, leaning in. They wanted a piece of this story. Gabriel couldn’t blame them. He wanted to keep this piece forever too.

In the morning, the doorbell rang before the sun came up. “I got it,” Gabriel said. “Go back to sleep.”

Sam flung his arm over his eyes and sank back into the pillows. Gabriel pulled on Sam’s t-shirt and padded past Alfie snoring on the couch to the door. There was only the porch wood and the road beyond when he looked out the peephole. Frowning, he unlocked the front door.

A for-sale sign was planted in the middle of his yard. A for sale sign. A for fucking sale sign. Gabriel’s heart sank, legs feeling like they turned to crumbles. His town was pushing him out, pretending his house was for sale. Pretending they didn’t exist. Pretending this home he carved from the framework and filled with the people he found and loved didn’t have claim to it.

He shut the door silently at his back, taking a breath to steady the raging ocean that had awoken. With gentle steps, he avoided the creaks in the porch floor, and made his way to the lawn, grass itching between his toes. There was no one in sight, but just in case they were hiding in the trees to see his reaction, he kept his face stiff.

Hands scraping smoothed wood, he tugged the sign from the ground, wondering how he missed the sound of them pounding it into the soil. It took all his strength to get the lawn to give the sign back, and he dragged it from the front yard around to the back. He’d have to stash it somewhere Sam wouldn’t find it, have to stash it somewhere hidden. He slid it beneath the porch steps as quietly as possible. He stashed his broken heart there too, hoping if it was hidden from his town’s hatred it might be whole again. He might be able to keep loving his town again. 

Right now, he wasn’t so sure he’d be able to stay. Not when he was feeling so much like he was back in his childhood home again searching for a way to somewhere safe and stable and warm.

He brushed his hands off on the fabric of his t-shirt and made his way inside, thinking this town would be his again. He just have to give it a little more time. 

He went back inside, Sam blinking awake as he sank onto the mattress. “Hey, everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Gabriel said. “Must have been the night wanderers.”

“Come to keep us awake,” Sam murmured, blinking back to sleep. Gabriel slid into bed and Sam’s arm wrapped around his waist. He shifted in Sam’s arms, turning towards the ceiling, finding shapes in the shadows of the moon. They stretched and grew, making faces of everyone he loved that lived in this town. 

“Your feet are cold,” Sam nuzzled into his neck. Gabriel hummed and watched the shadows shift for one minute longer before he turned into Sam’s warmth. Sam thought the town was still good and whole and welcoming, Gabriel would relish in that. He shut his eyes and the shadows melted into dreams.

Gabriel awoke to an empty bed. He sprang up, heart racing. Sam couldn’t have gone into town. Couldn’t have. He had to stop him.

“Sam?” Gabriel yelled. He pulled on a pair of jeans, tripping as he tugged them over his feet. He was halfway out the bedroom door, shouldering it and sending it swinging. It banged against the wall with a crash, Alfie shooting up from the couch.

“Yeah?” Sam called from the kitchen. He appeared in the doorway, towel around his hands. 

Gabriel sagged against the doorframe, feeling an empty relief. The sky thundered, shaking the windows, and he knew he couldn’t keep the world out for long. He’d do it as long as he could. “I just, I thought-”

“Gabriel?” Sam stepped closer.

“Good morning, is all I wanted to say,” Gabriel met his eyes across the room. Sam’s frown softened.

“Your shirt’s on backwards,” Alfie mumbled, flopping back down into the couch. Sam started to laugh across the room. He moved back into the kitchen, giggle echoing against the walls.

Gabriel’s heart settled in his chest as he pulled his arms through the holes in the shirt and turned it around, moving into the kitchen.

“Hey,” Sam said, pouring him a cup. Thunder shook the roof tiles, sending one soaring past the window to shatter against the damp wood. “Everything okay?”

“Sometimes I think the sky is caving in.”

Sam looked out the window, pressing an absent-minded kiss to Gabriel’s forehead. He pulled back, shook his head. “No. The thunder only means there’s still something holding it up. It wouldn’t echo if there weren’t.”

Gabriel listened for the echo of the thunder as it rumbled and he could feel it against his chest. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Now, what shall we do stuck inside all day?”

“Story circle,” Gabriel said.

“I’ll get the snacks,” Sam replied. 

They woke up Alfie and together all of them cleared the living room out, pushing the furniture into the bedroom or the kitchen. They were left with an empty room, the storm outside, and bowls of snacks scattered around. 

“What’s going on?” Alfie asked.

“Story circle,” Sam and Gabe said together. Gabriel plopped onto the floor, pulling a blanket over his legs. “Who wants to give the first prompt?”

“Tell me about a time a mountain turned into a molehill,” Sam said, sinking onto the carpet beside Gabriel. Lightening flashed. Alfie sat down too, and Gabriel began to speak.

“There was a stranger come to town,” he began. “He was tall and mighty and unknown. He held my hand, and then disappeared. I heard about him though, kept my ear trained on the gossip. Heard the music he played when he thought no one was looking. I fell in love with him so quickly, I told the trees to keep my secret, just in case I never fessed up. 

“I told him I loved him in the form of a story and there was nothing to it but words and heart.”

“Not so much a mountain indeed,” Sam said, leaning over to kiss Gabe with his fingers gentle in his hair. Sam pulled back beaming, Gabriel too, and neither could look away.

“Uh, guys?” Alfie said. “I’m happy for you and all, but there’s not much story telling going on here.”

“Sorry,” Sam pulled back. “You’re right. Who’s next?”

“I told the story, I pick the prompt. One of you tell me about something no one else knows.”

“No fair, you know everything about me,” Alfie said. 

Gabriel shrugged. “Guess Sam’s got to fess something up.”

Sam nodded, sorting through the stories surging. Gabriel could see him tossing them out one by one. Gabriel cut in, “Don’t think. Just speak.”

“There was a tire swing in the back of a trailer my father set up camp in for a few weeks. He’d leave us alone, my brother and I, for days at a time. We got restless. We started to explore. I found it on the edge of the river, and brought my brother to see it. Dean, he shrugged it off and went back to the trailer to wait for my father. He was never one to disobey and we were ordered to stay inside. My father was paranoid, talked all about the monsters waiting in the dark. 

“That night, when my brother fell asleep, I snuck out and went to the tire. In my t-shirt and jeans, I swung on it, light at first. Testing the rope. It held, though, so I swung higher and higher, reaching. I let go, and for one moment, I was touching a sky I hadn’t ever seen before. One all pink and orange and gentle. Where I grew up, we never looked at the sky. But there I was wrapped in it and the itch began just as soon as I plunged into the water waiting below. I wanted more. I wanted that sky forever. Not long after I set off to find it.”

“Have you?” Alfie asked, eyes on the windows.

“I think so. Just, in a different form,” Sam said, and Gabriel would swear on any version of holiness that Sam’s eyes were on his as he said it. 

They were silent a moment, then Sam spoke again. “Tell me about the big bad wolf.”

“I used to live with him. A version of him at least,” Alfie whispered.

“Me too,” Gabriel said. “Mine was the silent type mostly, the angry time all the time type. Fingers glued to a bottle wolf, wolf who knew how to growl. I got this scar on my knee from the time he shattered his bottle on the kitchen counter and then went to bed, angry about the time on the clock. It was behind a minute. That would make any wolf angry.”

“I don’t have any scars to show,” Alfie said. 

“That’s okay. We know they’re there,” Sam said. “Now which one of you wants to give a prompt?”

“Half and half?” Gabriel asked. “We both answered the question.”

“Sure, you start,” Alfie said. 

Gabriel tapped his finger against his chin. “Okay, we all have to do this one though, okay?”

Both Sam and Alfie nodded, Aflie with his hand inside the bowl of sour gummy worms Sam had put out. Sam shifted on his elbow, moving the blanket over his hips. “Tell me about the first time you…”

“Felt one hundred percent yourself,” Alfie finished. 

“The day I got here, I stumbled into the knitting group in Charlie’s bookstore. I didn’t know anyone, only wanted to find a quiet place to ground myself. See if I could figure out whether or not this was the one for me. 

“I walked in and there they were, sitting in a circle and knitting in oranges and blues. All of them turned to look at me, and I was frozen in the doorway. It hit me, just how much I didn’t belong. I turned to go, but someone called out to me.

“‘Well, aren’t you going to join us?’ Jody asked. I made a choice, I sat down beside the strangers and took the knitting needle from Donna’s outstretched hand and let them all teach me how to knit while the sun went down. There was something about it, something about the invitation, the teaching, the blind offering of anything I could need, that sealed the deal. When they left, Jody winked at me and asked if she’d see me next week. I said yes without thinking. I had found something of myself that was missing,” Gabriel finished.

Aflie began, “They found my brochures. I left what I thought was home and found myself on the floor of a living room. It was strange. It felt much more like home than the one before. Higher roof, more room for breathing. I could speak in that living room. I could speak.”

“I left everything I ever knew and started to walk along the road. Just walking and walking. I stopped at the sign to a town I had never heard of. I stopped, and I walked inside. Nothing’s been the same ever since I started to walk, ever since I stopped,” Sam said. 

“Tell me about the funniest joke you’ve ever told,” Gabriel said after the took a moment in the thunder-laced silence. The afternoon turned into evening and none of them noticed until their stomachs were growling. In the rain, the day looked no different from the night. When the grumbling got louder than the thunder, Gabriel stood to make some mac n cheese for dinner. Easy to put into bowls in case they wanted to keep going, he figured. 

The water was boiling when Sam came up behind him at the stove. He wrapped his arms around Gabriel’s waist, pressed a kiss to the notch of his spine above his t-shirt. “You love me and it was nothing but words and heart.”

“As it should be,” Gabriel said. 

“Well, then, if that’s all there is to it, I might as well carve the mountain into something easy to pocket,” Sam said. “I love you too.”

“This is crazy,” Gabriel said. “This is a small town. There’s no room for us to be grand together.”

“Yes there is,” Sam said. “We’ll make room. Carve the mountains with our hands.”

They’d carve the mountains together. That’s what they’d do. If only the mountains would stop multiplying, if only Sam knew they existed at all.

They ate mac n cheese on the carpet in the living room, but none of them spoke. Gabriel had started to feel raw after all that talking. Exposed. Like he’d shared too much. But, he reminded himself it was just Sam and Alfie, just his closest people. They wouldn’t judge him any more than he’d judge them. 

He and Sam took the dishes into the kitchen, and started to wash them at the sink. Sam moved around, wiping down counters, drying the dishes as Gabriel cleaned them. 

“Hey,” Gabriel said. “You think you could do me a favor? Well, Alfie really, but do you think you could make me a promise?”

“Sure, everything okay?” Sam said, moving to bump Gabe’s hip with his own.

“Yeah, yeah everything’s good. I just thought, at least for now, we should stay in. Stay out of town. Make a safe place for Alfie here without anything from out there getting in.”

“Like we were doing with Ben, right?”

“Yeah. Like we were doing with Ben.”

“Yeah, sure. We can stay in for awhile. It’ll be the best for Alfie. Do we have enough food or should I run into town tomorrow and stock up?”

“No,” Gabriel said, far too fast and knuckles going white around the bowl in his hands. “No. I’ll go. I’ve got to pick up my mail tomorrow anyhow. Get the rest of Ben’s things. We’ll finish it tomorrow night if we’re lucky.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah, we’ve only got a little bit left to do. Finishing touches, then happy ending.”

“Finishing touches, then happy ending,” Sam repeated with a grin.

Back in the living room, all of them moved the furniture back to its rightful place. Gabe and Sam had shifted the sofa already, and had gone back into the bedroom to get the coffee table and the other single-chairs. He stopped halfway through pushing one of the recliners back into the room, Alfie was snoring on the couch, arm draped over his eyes. 

“Hey, what’d you stop for? Keep it moving,” Sam said at Gabe’s back.

“Shh,” Gabriel said, turning. He pointed to Alfie and Sam set the table in his hands down. 

“What do we do with all this stuff then?” Sam asked, the bedroom door blocked.

He shrugged, climbing his way to the bed in the middle of the room. “We make do for tonight. We climb.”

Sam crashed over the top of the chairs and table and bookshelf, tumbling into Gabriel’s lap. Gabriel stifled his laughter in Sam’s shirt until Sam was kissing the laughter from his lips. 

* * *

In the morning, Gabriel went into town before the sun was up. He stole into the store as fast as possible, loading up on everything he set his eyes on just in case they needed it over the next month. He didn’t want to come back into town before Alfie’s orientation, didn’t want to have to face the idea of his town turning against him. At least now it was just Hannah and the stranger that left the sign in his yard. And Metatron and the kid on the bike and the girl from the first night of summer who had thought him both a monster and a god before.

He checked out without incident, made it to the post office unseen. He’d stolen around this town for so many reasons, but hiding himself from the town hadn’t ever been one of them. The thought broke his heart. Broke it into so many pieces. He went to the post office to find Hannah behind the counter. He didn’t even listen when she greeted him, didn’t hear anything as he grabbed the keys from behind the counter and collected his boxes. He didn’t hear her apologize, but from her tone it didn’t sound like one anyway. 

On the way back, he ran into Ben sitting on the sidewalk outside the post office while the sun rose. “Hey buddy,” Gabriel said. Ben didn’t look up. “Ben? Benny boy? It’s me, Gabriel. What’s going on?”

Still, Ben didn’t acknowledge that Gabriel was there. Gabriel, frowning, set down the two boxes full of things they’d be putting inside Ben’s surprise, and he sat down on the steps beside Ben. 

“Ben? Buddy what’s wrong?”

“He doesn’t want to talk to you.” Jody’s boots appeared out of the corner of Gabriel’s eye. Gabriel’s heart sank, and he stood up in a daze. Ben didn’t want to talk to him? Ben? Of all people to be angry about getting Alfie to college, he didn’t figure Ben would be one. 

Jody planted a firm hand on Gabriel’s shoulder and she lowered her voice. “He’s lost everyone and everything. He’s having a hard time with the idea of someone else leaving.”

“But-” Gabriel leaned to talk some sense into the boy.

“No, Gabriel. This is his way of coping. We’ve all got something we cling to. His just happens to be people.” She paused, squeezing her hand comfortingly. “Let him be. He’ll work through this, just let him be for now. When he’s ready, he’ll come find you.”

Gabriel nodded, and did what he always did. He put on a face of brick and grinned. “Sure, sounds good. Benny, you hear that? Come find me when you forgive me, okay? Remember, I’m the one with the cool stories. Wouldn’t want to miss out on that, not for long. Wouldn’t want me to hit old age and lose all my memories before you can dig through them.” Gabriel turned to Jody, grinning a broken grin. “Jods, thanks for the tip. See you around.”

Before Jody could say anything else, he grabbed his bags and boxes and hurried his way home. The sunrise was cut off by cloud cover and he knew it’d be raining by the time he got home. It was just as well. He needed something to keep them all in, everything he wanted safe and hidden. 

Sam kissed him on the cheek at the door and Gabriel couldn’t meet his eyes. How could he tell Sam that Ben didn’t want to see them? How could he break the news that the treehouse would stay the tree’s for God knew how long? 

When they had the groceries unpacked and Alfie got to work on getting all of his orientation things sorted, Sam begged Gabriel to go into the woods to finish the treehouse. Gabriel couldn’t say no. Couldn’t come up with a reasonable enough reason to say no. So, he went, and he hammered the nails of the floating shelves into place while his heart hurt with each pound. He went and he hung posters and draped the loveseat with a hand-knitted blanket and he didn’t let Sam see how much it hurt.

“We’re done,” Sam said, beaming when the last piece was sorted and shifted into its place. “We’ve finished.”

Gabriel beamed too, hoped it didn’t look too stiff. “We’re done.”

“Now all we’ve got to do is show Ben,” Sam said, staring in wonder at the wooden house they’d created. “Tomorrow?”

Gabriel shook his head, mind racing. “No. When the rain stops. We want there to be sunshine, right?”

“But, what about the running?”

“I talked to Jody. He doesn’t run in the rain. They made a deal.”

“How long are these storms supposed to last anyhow?” Sam asked. “I’ve never seen such monsoons.”

“Me neither,” Gabriel said. “I don’t know when they’ll pass.”

Sam shrugged. “They will, eventually. The bees have to come after all.”

“Right. The bees. We’re running out of time for the damn bees,” Gabriel muttered, though he thought again about the flowers they’d bring. Sam’s arms wrapped Gabriel into a hug, fingers gentle on his back.

“I’m sorry. I forgot. I won’t mention the bees again,” Sam murmured. “You were so young. It’s no wonder you can’t stand them.”

“Yeah, I was young. But the bastards flew me by. Why? Why’d they skip me?” 

“Maybe they were just waiting, just delaying your good luck. It’s coming. I can feel it,” Sam said, pulling back. “I never had these luck-bringing bees and I turned out alright.”

“Yeah, you turned out pretty damn good Sam Winchester,” Gabriel said, and beneath the pattering rainfall on the wooden roof they’d carved themselves, he kissed Sam hard, kissed him full of the broken pieces of his heart the town had left behind. Sam would fix it. Sam would heal him. He was golden and light and everything good after all. He’d fix anything.


	11. Chapter 11

“Hey, aren’t you going to knitting club?” Alfie asked Gabriel on Sunday afternoon. They’d been cooped up for days, all of them growing restless. Gabriel desperately so. He woke up each morning in a panic, thinking this would be the day the dream shattered for the man he loved and the kid he took into his home. They had two weeks until orientation. Just two more weeks. 

“Uh, nah, I figured I’d stay back and teach you two fools how to do a stitch or two if you’d like. There’s no reason to go into town to do what I could do here.”

Sam peered out from the bedroom, pasted smile on his face. He was going crazy too, escaping to the treehouse more nights than not. Gabriel stopped following him after the first two days, stopped staring so much. Sam was getting suspicious, and he was a smart guy. He’d figure it out and the gig would be up. “I’m in. Alfie, what do you say?”

“I’ll pass on the knitting, but I’ll stay in here and chat,” Alfie said.

“Sure, sure, Sammy grab the extra needles and yarn from the closet. Any color you want.”

Sam came back with the extra needles and yarn the color of gold, sinking onto the couch beside Gabriel.

“So, you’re going to hold them like this,” Gabriel started. “No, like this.  _ No. _ ”

“What? I don’t understand. I am holding them like this.”

“No, you’re not. Look at my hands. Are you even looking at them?”

“Yes, Gabriel, I am looking, but they don’t look any different than mine.”

Gabriel knew, he knew this was stupid, knew this fight was just the restlessness talking, but he couldn’t shake it. He needed to bite, needed to let out some of this hurt and rage somehow. He snapped at Sam, guilt blooming like a monster in his gut, and Sam snapped right back. 

“You know what, this is ridiculous.” Sam threw the needles at Gabriel’s feet and stalked into the bedroom, leaving Gabriel feeling empty and no better than before. 

Gabriel buried his face in his hands and listened as Sam stormed around the bedroom. Listened as Sam’s footsteps grew closer. “Come to apologize?” Gabriel asked without looking up. All that came out was the sound of the front door slamming.

“Wait,” Gabriel called out, shooting from the couch. “Sam, wait. Don’t go.” 

He caught Sam at the end of the driveway, snagging a hand on his sleeve. “Wait. Don’t go into town, please Sam.”

“Why, Gabriel? Alfie’s fine. He’s adjusted. He’s tried your house on his shoulders, okay? But that has nothing to do with me. Give me one good reason I shouldn't be able to go get a slice of pie and try not to punch something because we’ve been cooped up so long we can’t even have a normal goddamn conversation.”

Gabriel sighed, took a breath still holding Sam’s sleeve. “They put a for-sale sign in my front yard.”

“What?” Sam snarled.

“The other night when the door bell rang, there was a for-sale sign nailed into my front yard. When I went into town, Hannah called me a traitor and wouldn’t open my mailbox. Someone knocked the boxes out of my hands, that’s why they were soaking wet. Ben won’t speak to me, and they put a for-sale sign in my front yard,” Gabriel said, breaking with every word. “The town I love has turned on me. They’ve turned, Sam.” 

“Gabriel,” Sam said, voice softer, shoulders too. 

“I didn’t want them to turn on you too. I wanted you to think it was still perfect out here so you’d stay. You have to stay, Sam. I need you to stay,” Gabriel was near tears, near collapse, near explosion. He couldn’t look up, couldn’t handle the heartbreak he knew was in Sam’s eyes. Gabriel had been there for the whole love affair, Sam with the town. He’d seen it in Sam’s eyes. Now, he knew it was over. Sam would divorce the town and leave Gabriel behind. He was a runner, just like Ben, just like Gabriel. 

Sam pulled him against his chest and Gabriel went willingly, letting Sam hold him up for a minute all the while whispering the word stay into his shirt.

“Gabriel,” Sam said. “Why didn’t you tell me? We could have gone together.”

Gabriel shook his head. “I needed you to stay.”

Sam tightened his arms. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, but his voice was wavering and far too soft to be a declaration with any substance. Gabriel clung to Sam at the end of the drive, clung to Sam while he was still here. There’d be no guarantees come morning.

“Gabriel?” Alfie called out the screen door. 

“Coming,” Gabriel said. He turned to Sam. “If you go into town, don’t let them get to you. Hold your ground. Alfie needs us.”

Sam nodded and followed Gabriel inside, linking their fingers as he pushed into the living room. Gabriel held back his grin. “What is it Alf?”

“There’s an opening for an earlier orientation. I think I would like to go. It’ll give me more time, give me real information. Maybe if I have some hard facts, some physical proof I’m leaving, they’ll accept it.”

“When?” Gabriel asked.

“Tomorrow,” Alfie said, chewing his bottom lip.

“How far’s the drive again?” Gabriel asked, doing math in his head.

“Four or five hours, something like that.”

“Let’s get packing then. We’ll leave before the sun comes up, we need to be there by 9 right?”

Alfie nodded and rushed around the living room to pack a change of clothes and stuff for the car ride. Gabriel turned to Sam. “You okay if we leave you for a few days? They do the main stuff on the first day, but there’s optional things like club meetings the next few days and I think Alfie will want to stay.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure you don’t want me to come with?”

Gabriel shook his head. “We’ve got it. Alfie doesn’t want us to spend any more money just to get you to come along. He refused.”

“I get it, guest passes are ridiculous. Want me to call around for a hotel?”

“That’d be great,” Gabriel said, kissing Sam quick before going into the bedroom to pack a few days of clothes, all the while picturing an empty house when they returned.

* * *

They didn’t notice at first. Didn’t notice the emptiness of the house on the outskirts of town. It wasn’t until the for-sale sign they’d replanted remained overnight. It wasn’t until Gabriel’s mail went unclaimed for long enough to spill onto the floor that anyone bothered to think about the ones on the outskirts at all.

It was in the doorway of Jody’s place first, Donna turning to Jody before she left. “Heya babe, you seen Gabriel around? It’s been awhile. Sam too.”

Jody frowned, counting the days. She shook her head, but shrugged off Donna’s concern. “I’m sure they’re just sulking. Some of the people around here hit them a little hard.”

Donna nodded and kissed her cheek on the way out the door. Jody shook her head. They were around, just being careful was all.

Then it was Ben in a comment the next day. “I miss Sam,” he said into his cereal bowl. 

“Yeah, maybe we should go check in on him and Gabriel tonight. We could bring them some pie. Maybe you could write a letter to them? Tell them you’re sorry for ignoring them?”

Ben sighed. “They’re taking Alfie away.”

Jody shook her head. “What do you want to do when you grow up Ben?”

He shrugged. “Something cool. Like you.”

“Well guess where I had to go to school to be an officer knuckle head. It wasn’t anywhere close to here.”

He said nothing, but when he finished his cereal Ben went to the drawer and pulled out a piece of paper. He was chewing the eraser when Jody kissed the top of his head and went to work for the day. That night Jody and Ben walked to the porch steps of Gabriel’s house and it was all darkness. Jody didn’t believe in things like ghosts, but there was something haunting about looking at the house. Like no one had lived there in forever. Without the humans inside, it was just wood and dust and empty space unfilled. 

There was a note on the door with tape and Ben raced up to read it. “It’s for me,” he said. 

“What?” Jody said. “What do you mean it’s for you?”

“Look,” Ben said, holding out the note.  _ Ben, _ it said,  _ if this finds you, you have something to find. Follow the x’s on the trees. -Sam and Gabe _ . It was in Sam’s handwriting, scribbled on the back of receipt from the grocery store.

Ben didn’t hesitate before his feet were blurring, dirt cloud left in the wake of his red sneakers. Jody jogged behind him, rounding the house to the treeline. There was an x there in carved bark and Ben grinned as he moved past it to scan the trees to find the next. They moved through the forest in a blur of tree-brown and sun-burnt leaves still damp from the last rainfall when they came across the treehouse.

“Whoa,” Ben said, pulling the note from where it was pinned against the wooden ladder rung. 

_ Dear Ben, here is a safe place to run to. Enjoy. _

Ben clambered up, Jody watching all the way, as he pushed the trapdoor open and climbed inside his new haven. She knew, she could feel it in the trees and cleared sky and starlight, that this was a place for Ben to be alone. So, she wouldn’t go up too. But, she’d choke back her tears at those goddamn idiots that built this house by hand. The itching in her heart, the one that made her eyes dodgy and always searching for the blur across her field of vision, fell away.

“Hey Jody?” Ben peered over the window of the treehouse. “Do you think-”

“Already heading home. Be home before midnight yeah?”

“Yeah. See you tonight.”

Jody wiped the tears away from her cheeks as she walked home, heart full for those boys and aching for their absence all at once. Had they packed up and left? Had the hate been too much? Perhaps their town had eaten their hearts. Perhaps they moved onto a place where they could smile again.

She went home and smiled when Ben walked in with one minute to spare with a soft grin on his face and feet moving slower than they’d ever moved. “I need to say sorry,” Ben said, coming into the bedroom to sit on the edge of the bed. “They built me a treehouse. It’s got a mini-fridge and a playstation.”

Jody nodded. “Let me see if I can find them. They’ll come home. They have to.”

In the morning, Jody jimmied the lock on the front door and took off her shoes as she stepped into the empty house. There was no sign of life, not in the living room. Not in the kitchen. Only clean countertops and the smell of the morning air seeping through the cracked open window. She steadied the rising panic and hardened her resolve as she turned the knob of Gabriel’s room. The bed was made with tucked in corners, the dresser empty of picture frames. She eased open the closet and sighed when the closet was still full of t-shirts and jeans. 

She retraced her steps, grasping at something that could tell these boys just how grateful she was. She got an idea, hurried her way to the grocery store. With her purchases she practically ran to Gabriel’s lawn and started digging. The bees would come and she knew the idiot wouldn’t have planted anything worth anything in his own yard. Knew she’d seen him sneaking around town to do this for everyone else but himself. As much as he hated the bees, everyone deserved some flowers in bloom. She heaved the for sale sign from the lawn and tossed it into the dumpsters outside the diner.

Jody went home and dialed Gabriel’s number without hitting send. Wherever they were, they were breathing easier. Breathing in a town without a tinge of hatred that was swirling in this one. Wherever they were, they had a decision to make, and she couldn’t blame them either way.

* * *

Gabriel and Alfie rolled into town in the dead of night and no one saw them come home. Not a soul. It was Sunday and Gabriel hardly slept. The other side of the bed was empty, the house clear of the smell of Sam. He couldn’t do it, not anymore.

Monday morning, town meeting. Metatron arrived to unlock the door.

“Hello dear, Daddy’s home and he needs the microphone today.”

“What?”

“No isn’t even in your vocabulary this morning and I’ll throw in an endorsement during the next re-election in the form of streaking through the town with your name painted across my chest.”

“Absolutely not, Gabriel,” Metatron snorted.

“I’ll leave. I’ll leave and you’ll lose. You know the pull I have.”

“Had,” Metatron said, shoving open the door. “But, fine. I’ll give you the stage and then I’ll laugh as they boo you off of it.”

The room filled with chatter and Gabriel waited. And waited. Then, he kicked off the back wall where he was tucked into the darkness.

“Well good goddamn morning you beautiful bastards,” Gabriel said, making his way up the center aisle of the room. “What, no welcome home? No tears of joy at my return? Hmm.”

He took his place at the center of the stage. The crowd had gone eerily silent. Jody had been talking, though Gabriel didn’t know that.

“Fine. Well, that’s well enough. Don’t welcome me home, but I’m going to talk for awhile and you’re going to listen. You have no choice because, well, I convinced Metatron to hold the cookies and coffee until the end of my little speech. Okay? Okay,” Gabriel said through the murmurs of pure agony. 

“Okay, listen up fuckfaces. There’s a boy that we all love and he’s reaching for the stars. No, actually, he’s just reaching for something better than bagging groceries for the rest of his life. Now, I want you to raise your hand if you’ve be okay bagging groceries for the rest of your lives. No? No one. Surprise surprise, it’s almost like that job sucks ass. 

“Now, I want you to raise your hand if you watched Alfie grow up. If he’s ever offered to carry your groceries to your house for you. If he’s ever made your day the tiniest bit better by just being himself. See, Alfie’s one of the good ones. He’s a perpetual optimist. One who sees the sun and clouds with equal grin. All he’s asking for is a little help to get somewhere better. He wants to be better. He’s one of the few of us here that thinks he can get there, get to something better. 

“Tell me, why on Earth would we say no? Saying no will only make this town a place to never go back to. You want to know how I know? That was my childhood. I wanted better and they didn’t want it for me. I haven’t been back since I was seventeen. Do you want to see Alfie get married? Do you want to see what he does with his life? When he’s famous and grand, don’t you want him to say he grew up here with a smile instead of a frown?

“You want to know how else I know? Sam, beautiful and bright Sam, had a childhood like this. He thought he had found a home here with us in our little town. We were blessed to have someone so grand. So magical and bright. He was a once in a lifetime shade of sunshine and now the other side of the bed is empty and his shoes aren’t by the door anymore,” Gabriel swallowed hard around the bubble in his throat.

“You fuckers ruined this town for him, ruined the best thing I have ever wanted to keep around. Don’t, please, don’t ruin it for Alfie too.”

Gabriel jumped down from the stage and walked out the doors into the pink of the sunrise. On the sidewalk he sat down and began to laugh into the concrete. He laughed until tears in his eyes blurred the sunrise into a blob, laughed until his abs became an eight pack. Laughed over the sound of the door creaking open behind him, and through the slightly worn boots appearing out of the corner of his eye.

“Gabriel, you didn’t have to make them think I was gone,” Sam said.

“Idiots,” Gabriel said through the heaving laughter. “Most of them walked right by you when they came in. Still, though, that was fucking hilarious  _ and _ educational, the only kind that works on this goddamn town. Now, Sam, you beautiful, beautiful man, help me up and let’s go home.”

Sam held out his hand. They went home to find Alfie  _ still _ freaking out about the car Sam had gone to retrieve from Stanford to give to Alfie as a present. 

Sam pulled Gabe inside as the clouds above rumbled. “You know what I always think about during these storms?” Sam asked, shutting the door to their bedroom softly behind him while Gabriel toed off his shoes.

“What’s that?” Gabriel said, sinking onto the bed.

“This,” Sam said, and he was on Gabriel within one flash of lightning. It seemed it was their thing, the flashes of light in all the darkness. They became everything about it, the electricity, the vibrance, the reaching out to touch something so foreign and beautiful. It was them. It was magic and alive.

* * *

In the morning, Gabriel opened the door to find his porch full of apologies in the only way the town knew how. Jars of jam lined the windowsills, a pie wrapped in tin foil wafting the smell of cinnamon through the air. There was a pair of boots in the corner, his front yard patched up where the sign had been before.

They were sorry. He forgave them.

There were two weeks of summer left and still the cloud cover remained over their cursed, cursed town. There were two weeks left of summer when the town stopped and, above the rumbling, heard the din of the bees in their swarm. They panicked, they ran. 

Gabriel awoke to a knocking at his door. “Gabriel,” Jody said on the other side, “We need your help. I know you hate us, I know we did you wrong. But, we don’t know how to fix this.”

“Fix what?” Gabriel asked, mind racing to Ben.

“The bees. They’re coming.”

“So,” Gabriel said, swinging the door shut.

“They’ll drown. In the rain, they’ll drown.”

“What the hell you want me to do, talk to the weather gods or something? I mean, I’m good but I’m not fucking magic,” Gabriel said, Sam coming up behind him in the doorway.

“No, I don’t know. We figured you’d know what to do,” Jody said. Ben peered out from behind her.

“If I say sorry will you forgive me and help the bees come to town? I’ve never seen them,” Ben pleaded.

“Me neither,” Alfie called from inside the living room.

Gabriel sighed. “Fine. I need all the tarps, all the tents, all the blankets and paper and whatever the hell else you can think of. And I need hands, lot of ‘em.” Jody turned to leave. “Oh, and I wouldn’t mind a few apologies. In person.”

She grinned and Ben followed her as they raced through the pouring rain. “I thought you hated the bees,” Sam whispered at Gabe’s shoulder.

He shrugged. “I like the people in this town more. Even if they’re assholes.”

They started creating the sky all over again at the end of town by the highway, all of them holding it up with sticks and branches and poles taken from the playgrounds. They made the sky of paper, made it of plastic and knit and wood. They made their way towards the center of town and branched out. There was not to be a home left behind, a home left uncovered. It wouldn’t do to save the bees without letting them do their duty. They had to choose. It was the way of things. 

They built a brand new sky, one without clouds or rain save a few leaks here or there, and then they all went home to wait as the buzzing grew closer and closer. Gabriel buried himself in the blankets on his bed and willed his childhood to go away. But, Sam was there.

“Hey,” Sam said. “Tell me a new story.”

“A new story?”

“Take your old one a change it. Tell me about the time the bees picked you.”

Out the bedroom window, Gabriel could see them nearing, could see the way Sam longed to go out there. He slid from the bed and tangled their fingers together. He didn’t like the bees, but Sam hadn’t ever seen them at work. 

Out front, beneath a blue tarp that cast them in shadow, Gabriel toed off his shoes. Sam followed. He stood next to Sam, grinning, toes curling in the damp grass of their lawn, and he began.

“There was a man living alone when he heard the bees were coming. They were supposed to bring good luck, you see. But, if they flew by without landing in your yard, well, it didn’t look so much like good luck as bad. This man was angry, the bees had failed him once before and his brother died soon after. It took him a long time to realize that wasn’t the bees that wound him up dressed in black. Still, there was anger there. He refused to plant any bait for the creatures.

“But, when they came he wasn’t so alone anymore. There was a man living alone, but someone knew walked into town. He knew nothing of the bees, knew nothing of the bad luck curse that fell on anyone slighted by them. This walking man found our lonely man, loved our lonely man. He was the best luck there ever was, with or without the bees. 

“When they came again, he wasn’t so alone and he didn’t mind waiting for the flowers to bloom so he could braid them through the walking man’s hair, for the walking man had such beautiful hair.”

Sam squeezed his hand as the first of the bees flew by. Gabriel closed his eyes. He’d wait out the buzzing and be there for Sam when it was all over. But, the buzzing grew louder and louder for far too long.

“Open your eyes,” Sam whispered. Gabriel did and there was a swarm of bees around the two of them, touching their hands and neck with light kisses before lifting off again. They swirled and flew through the sheltered air and Sam kissed Gabriel hard in the middle of it all. “Looks like you’re good luck.”

“Nah” Gabriel said, “I think it’s you.”

“It’s both of us together, and only together,” Sam said, and Gabriel couldn't agree more. 

* * *

The town bloomed, a fist unfurling with color and clear skies for miles.

They threw a party for Alfie’s going away, a surprise over-night carnival in which they all slept in the haunted house they’d created with all the lights on and laughed at their reflections in the distorted mirrors. In which they bought way too much cotton candy. In which an apology was said in the lights and cheer by the town and Alfie accepted it with a grin. He’d be leaving the next day, driving off in Sam’s old car packed with all the furniture and supplies Gabriel had shipped here. He’d be leaving to somewhere better, but now he had somewhere good to come back to if he ever needed it.

When he drove off, Sam and Gabe walked back home hand in hand. Their lawn was full of flowers in every color, and Gabriel thought he knew who planted it there but he didn’t ask. Some things were better left to the stars. 

He stooped to snag a golden flower. “Sam, come here,” Gabriel said. Sam knelt willingly and Gabriel tucked it behind his ear. 

“See there, aren’t you glad the bees came?”

“I’m more glad about you,” Gabriel said to Sam.

* * *

As the town cleaned up the carnival, there was nothing they could do but talk.  _ So Sam and Gabe huh?  _ But, no one was really asking. They all had seen it coming. It was natural, the way they gravitated together. Two people that fit just right. Fit in this town. Belonged here and together. It became a game soon after, how many times could you catch them apart. If you could, you got a free slice of pie. Ellen grinned. Not once did anyone ever claim a free slice of pie.

_ How long until he gets down on one knee? _ But, no one was all that surprised when Bobby let it slip that he caught Sam on one knee two weeks before near the treehouse. He had gone to check out their handiwork was all and he backed away slowly so he didn’t really see much. Only the ring in Sam’s fingers and the grin on their faces and the way the moonlight surrounded them in light. 

Then it was  _ how long until the wedding _ and then  _ can we get the pews from the church church and fit them in the back of the market?  _ And  _ what are you getting for the reception? Only the best for our boys, right? _

Sam and Gabe paid it no mind, though that last comment did sift its way though. “Only the best,” Gabriel promised Sam at the center of the stage where they’d sung together all those months ago. 

“Only the best,” Sam replied, and they kissed beneath an archway woven with gold and midnight while their town clapped from mis-matched pews in the back of the supermarket while the moonlight from the altered universe rained down. Only the best, only together.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Leave a comment below or come talk to me at [ Kibberswrites ](https://kibberswrites.tumblr.com/)!


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